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WHAT  ANSWER? 


By  ANNA  E.  DICKINSON,     i  vol.  i6mo.    1.50. 


THIS  is  one  of  the  books  which  belong  to  the  class  of  deeds  not 
•words.  It  is  a  solemn,  earnest,  thrilling,  enthusiastic  appeal,  in 
which  a  noble  woman,  herself  at  ease,  blessed  with  flattering  friends, 
with  applause,  with  admiration,  takes  all  in  her  hand,  and  risks  all  in 
pleading  the  cause  of  the  poorest,  the  most  despised,  the  most  maltreated 
and  scorned  of  God's  creatures.  In  the  form  of  a  story,  she  makes  a 
most  condensed,  earnest,  and  powerful  appeal  to  the  heart  and  conscience 
of  the  American  nation  on  the  sin  of  caste.  If  anybody  can  read  the 
book  unmoved,  we  have  only  pity  for  him.  What  gives  this  story  its 
awful  power  is  its  truth.  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE. 


JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  &  CO.,  Publishers,  Boston, 


PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


BT 


ANNA  E.  DICKINSON. 


BOSTON: 
JAMES    R.    OSGOOD    AND    COMPANY, 

(LATE  TlCKNOR  &  FIELDS,  AMI)  FIELDS,  OSOOOD,  &  CO.) 

1876. 


COPYRIGHT,  1876, 
BY  ANNA  E.  DICKINSON. 


FRANKLIN  PEESS. 

8TKBZOTTPED  AND  PRINTED  BT 

BAUD,  AVERT,  &  Co. 


Nothing  nefo,  fout  neelrtng  line  upon  line* 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT, 


i. 

THERE  is  one  fact  concerning  this  country 
of  ours,  at  which  every  travelling  foreigner 
is  amazed,  in  which  every  native  takes  pride 
as  though  it  were  a  special  personal  virtue ; 
and  that  is  the  extent  of  it  all. 

New  England's  hills  and  valleys,  rich  in 
beauty,  poor  in  soil,  abounding  in  human 
thrift  and  human  ingenuity.  The  Middle 
States  with  their  crowded  towns  and  cities, 
their  marks  of  tireless  energy  and  exhaust- 
less  enterprise ;  their  mines  and  furnaces, 
black  foundations  to  magnificent  superstruc- 
tures. The  South,  generous  in  sun  and  cli- 
mate, green  with  tobacco-leaves  and  waving 
corn,  white  with  endless  stretches  of  cotton- 
fields,  and  decked  with  flowers.  The  great 

7 


8  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

West,  homely  of  visage,  flat  and  plain,  yet 
•with  all  possibilities  of  growth  and  -wealth 
before  it,  and  with  a  civilization  as  yet  rough 
hewn,  many  angled,  often  ungainly,  but  with 
the  lines  that  mark  strength  and  proportion, 
that,  rilled  out  and  covered  by  the  sure  gath- 
erings of  generations,  will  as  well  mark  per- 
fect beauty. 

And  away  beyond  all  this,  beyond  the 
Missouri,  hundreds  of  miles  of  level  plain. 
Hundreds  of  miles  of  open  rolling  prairie- 
land,  the  swells  of  surface  like  the  endless 
billows  of  a  peaceful  sea.  Hundreds  of  miles 
of  mountains,  —  mountains  broken,  ragged, 
like  storms  petrified  and  fixed  forever; 
mountains  stretching  away  range  beyond 
range,  stately,  majestic,  to  seeming  infinity. 
Hundreds  of  miles  of  desert  region,  filled 
with  the  solemnity  of  silence  and  desolation. 
Hundreds  of  miles,  some  level,  some  billowy, 
some  upheaved,  under  whose  scarred  and 
dreary  face  lies  gathered  the  wealth  of  India 
and  Peru,  —  a  mineral  wealth  to  supply  the 
world ;  and  then  the  majestic  lift  of  Sierras, 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

bearing  their  garmenture  of  firs  and  cedars 
and  pines,  trees  that  have  withstood  the 
tempests  of  a  thousand  years,  stately  and 
beautiful  as  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  when 
these  were  worthy  to  adorn  the  temple  of 
God.  And.  shooting  down  from  these,  a 
land  of  splendors  opens,  —  a  land  wherein 
the  earth  rivals  the  waters,  and  the  waters 
wash  down  sands  of  gold. 

Stupendous  in  size,  a  size  matched  by 
the  grasping  spirit  of  this  generation  of  its 
inhabitants.  "  We  must  possess  it  all,"  say 
they,  and  proceed  to  act  accordingly.  It 
must  all  be  "  fenced  in,"  to  use  an  expressive 
California  phrase.  The  mines  must  all  be 
opened,  though  but  the  top  crust  be  scraped. 
The  timber  must  all  be  blazed,  though  but 
a  tree  here  and  there  be  felled.  The  land 
must  all  be  surveyed,  though  there  be  not  a 
body  nor  a  soul  to  occupy  it.  The  town- 
lots  must  be  laid  out,  and  held  at  a  most 
unrighteous  figure,  though  the  town  or  the 
city  itself  can  only  be  seen  in  perspective  — 
five  hundred  years  away. 


10  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

That  is  the  native  American.  "This  is 
mine,"  he  says.  "  It  belongs  to  me,  and  my 
generation,  and  my  people.  We  of  the 
present  will  drink  of  the  cream  of  this  pan ; 
and  those  who  come  after  us  may  content 
themselves  with  the  skim-milk :  "  whereas, 
in  reality,  the  cream  has  scarcely  begun  to 
rise. 

Nowhere  else,  at  no  time  else,  has  there 
been  such  universal  grasping  at  wealth,  such 
deification  of  the  dollar,  such  a  thirst  for 
material  prosperity,  such  hunger  to  possess 
the  earth  and  its  fulness,  as  in  this  age  and 
land. 

Each  man  desires  it ;  and  being  what  he 
is,  of  such  growth  as  the  soil  produces,  he 
prefers  being  "  boss  "  to  man.  He  would 
infinitely  rather  be  employer  than  employed. 
He  will  be  the  head.  What,  then,  are  the 
hands  ? 

The  port  of  New  York  can  tell.  Every 
loaded  emigrant  ship  can  answer.  They  are 
hands  hardened  to  toil,  accustomed  to  serve, 
—  German  hands  and  Irish  hands  in  multi- 
tudes. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  11 

The  Golden  Gate  of  the  Pacific  can 
reveal.  California  can  make  manifest,  with 
its  English,  Scotch,  Irish,  French,  Spanish, 
Portuguese,  German,  Italian,  Greek,  Scandi- 
navian acquisitions,  drawn  by  the  same  load- 
stone of  gold. 

And  now,  in  addition  to  these,  hands  made 
of  the  dust  of  empires,  —  Hindoos,  Lascars, 
Chinamen;  one  hundred  thousand  on  the 
Pacific  coast,  soon  to  be  a  million  scattered 
along  the  Pacific  Roadt  radiating  thence 
across  the  country. 

On  the  one  side,  exhaustless  fields  of 
undeveloped  wealth,  a  limitless  desire  for 
riches  and  command:  on  the  other,  huge, 
hungry  multitudes,  trained  to  toil,  servitude 
their  condition,  eager  for  employment  and 
bread ;  crowded  and  impoverished  at  home, 
tempting  facilities  offered  them  to  abandon 
it.  A  vacuum  here;  a  vast  compressed 
force  there :  the  result  manifest.  They  will 
be  driven  by  the  conditions  behind  them, 
and  be  drawn  by  the  promises  before. 

Did  we  so  desire,  we  could  not  stop  nor 


12  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

stay  them.  As  well  set  metes  and  bounds 
to  the  ocean,  as  well  say  to  the  ungovernable 
waves,  "  Thus  far,"  as  hope  or  strive  to  check 
this  human  tide  setting  from  continent  to 
continent,  —  from  Europe  on  the  east,  from 
Asia  and  Africa  and  the  isles  of  the  sea  on 
the  west,  "  like  two  vast  torrents  rising  una- 
batedly,  and  daily  driven  onward  by  the 
hand  of  God." 

Not  satisfied  with  these,  we  have  grasped 
at  Alaska.  We  will  give  reasons  unim- 
peachable and  absolute  why  we  should  add 
Canada,  off  at  the  north,  to  the  ornaments 
about  our  head,  and  tack  on  Mexico  at  the 
south-west,  and  Cuba  and  San  Domingo  at 
the  south-east,  as  adornings  to  the  ample 
flow  of  our  garments.  Because,  say  we,  we 
thereby  add  to  the  strength  and  glory  of  the 
country:  we  thereby  secure  great  gain  to 
the  Republic. 

Do  we,  then  ? 

Yes ;  if  extent  of  territory,  if  numbers 
of  population,  if  enormous  development  of 
material  wealth  and  resources,  constitute 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  13 

the  basis  or  best  part  of  a  basis  for  the 
Republic. 

Do  they  so  ? 

All  history  teaches  us,  that  as  territory 
has  spread,  as  numbers  have  increased,  as 
wealth  has  accumulated,  nations  and  men 
have  decayed. 

If  a  man's  vital  organs  grow  with  the 
growth  of  his  external  body,  if  his  heart  is 
sound,  and  his  digestion  excellent,  and  his 
circulation  active,  and  his  exercise  abundant, 
growth  in  size  must  indicate  growth  of 
strength  as  well. 

But  if  a  man  retains  in  the  body  of  a 
giant  the  vital  organs  of  a  child,  or  if  it 
be  layer  on  layer  of  fat  that  is  added  to  his 
internal  and  external  economy,  or  if  his  size 
grow  by  the  grafting-on  of  alien  and  even 
diseased  members,  then  it  is  in  order  to  ques- 
tion whether  size  indicates  strength,  or  the 
reverse. 


14  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


n. 

WE  set  wide  our  doors,  and  invite  the 
world  to  come  in.  What  sort  of  provision 
do  we  make  for  these  our  guests  when  they 
appear  ? 

"Pis  a  costly  house  they  enter.  Many  of 
them  are  rude  and  wild.  Left  to  their  own 
devices,  unchecked  and  uninstructed,  they 
may  damage  and  destroy ;  and,  in  the  mis- 
chief wrought,  be  damaged  and  destroyed  in 
turn.  What  eye,  or  hand,  or  attention  do  we 
give  to  them  ? 

"  Oh,  America  is  a  great  country !  We 
are  large  enough  and  strong  enough  to  swal- 
low and  digest  all  that  are  sent  to  us." 

We  swallow  them  certainly.  Do  we  digest 
and  assimilate  them  ?  Or  are  all  the  nerve 
forces  used  in  other  channels,  and  exhausted 
in  other  enterprises  ? 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  15 

The  American  of  the  present  day  wishes 
to  do  somewhat  for  his  country,  but  to  do  it 
without  self-sacrifice  or  laborious  effort. 

His  own  chief  desire  is  to  make  money,  — 
to  have  and  to  hold  it ;  not  for  what  it  will 
bring  to  himself  and  to  others,  not  to  use  it 
as  a  talent  and  a  trust,  but  for  itself,  and  that 
others  shall  know  he  is  "  worth  "  it. 

He  will  be  rich.  And  to  this  end  he  will 
make  himself  poor  in  all  that  makes  life 
worth  the  possessing. 

He  has  not  time  to  read  the  books  he  gath- 
ers on  his  library  shelves,  nor  to  admire 
the  pictures  he  hangs  on  his  walls,  nor  to 
take  his  ease  in  the  place  he  calls  his  home, 
nor  to  sit  down  in  his  neighbor's  house,  and 
cultivate  the  pleasures  of  kindly  human  com- 
panionship, nor  to  tell  his  wife  that  he  loves 
her,  nor  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  his 
children. 

He  converts  himself  from  manhood  into  a 
sort  of  double-action  machinery ;  he  swathes 
himself  in  interminable  folds  of  business  till 
he  is  a  species  of  mummy.  He  drains  his 


16  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

body  of  all  its  resources  to  run  his  money- 
grinding  engine  ;  and  sapped  and  undermined, 
or  in  actual  ruins,  with  "  brain  trouble  "  or 
"  spine  trouble  "  or  "  heart  trouble  "  or  "  half 
dead  with  dyspepsia,"  has  the  supreme  satis- 
faction of  hearing  people  say  as  he  goes  by 
them  on  the  streets,  "A  wonderful  man 
that !  wonderful !  began  life  without  a  dollar, 
and  is  worth  half  a  million." 

Presently  the  same  people  say,  as  he  passes 
them,  —  carried,  not  walking,  —  "  Dead  ?  of 
course  he  is  dead.  No  man  could  hold  out  at 
his  pace  long  —  I  hear  his  will  is  to  be  con- 
tested." 

Or,  he  makes  his  struggle  ineffectually  for 
all  this,  and  dies  in  the  midst  of  the  struggle. 

The  great  good  to  be  secured  in  the  indi- 
vidual life  is  this.  The  great  good,  then,  — 
thinks  such  an  individual  life,  — to  be  gained 
for  the  whole,  is,  to  spread  in  the  eyes  of  the 
world  the  size  and  material  prosperity  of  the 
Republic. 

"  Well,  what  else  remains  to  be  done  ?  " 
asks  such  a  one.  "  The  men  of  a  past  gen- 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  17 

eration  fought  for  and  established  a  republic. 
The  men  of  a  decade  ago  fought  for  and  se- 
cured a  republic.  We  are  at  peace.  The  work 
of  war  and  the  work  of  peace  are  alike  done. 
The  machinery  is  constructed,  is  in  order, 
has  been  altered  and  improved  and  perfected. 
Nothing  more  is  needed  than  for  us  to  put 
some  officers  in  command,  delegate  authority 
to  them,  leave  them  to  attend  to  their  affairs, 
while  we  settle  to  the  real  duty  and  profit 
and  business  of  life,  —  the  making  of  money." 

Selfishness,  sooner  or  later,  defeats  its  own 
ends. 

"  We  are  free,"  is  our  boast.  The  people 
that  asks  to  be  let  alone,  to  hold  only  the 
rights,  and  to  be  released  from  the  cares  and 
duties  and  responsibilities,  of  citizens,  are 
slaves,  —  slaves  to  their  own  well-being; 
and  "  the  chain  awaits  them,  for  which 
they  await." 

Are  we  in  any  wise  tending  towards  this 
splendid  servitude  ? 

Let  us  see. 


18  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


III. 

"  ETEBNAL  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liber- 
ty :  "  repeated  here  a  million  times,  a  million 
times  forgotten. 

We  are  fond  of  talking  of  ourselves  as  a 
peculiar  people,  favored  of  God.  Yet  be 
sure  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
receive  aught  at  the  hands  of  the  great  Cap- 
tain beyond  any  other  division  of  his  vast 
army. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  free  gift  in 
nature.  That  that  we  have  we  must  toil  for. 
Even  this  body  of  ours,  the  first  of  our  pos- 
sessions, the  last  of  our  renunciations,  cannot 
survive  for  a  day  without  our  own  will  or 
effort,  even  though  there  be  others  a  plenty 
to  serve  it. 

Fortunate  in  beginning  our  career  where 
nature  was  fresh  and  liberal,  fortunate  in 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  19 

establishing  a  government  away  from  old- 
time  laws  and  traditions,  untrammelled  by 
dead  weights  and  precedents,  fortunate  in 
the  fatherhood  of  men  who  knew  the  right, 
and,  knowing,  dared  maintain  through  pov- 
erty and  blood  and  death,  —  fortunate  in  all 
these,  yet  these  alone  will  not  suffice  to 
make  us  strong  in  the  present,  nor  secure  in 
the  future. 

We  cannot,  if  we  would,  be  pensioners 
upon  the  dead.  The  same  arts,  or  greater, 
that  did  gain  a  power,  must  it  maintain. 
With  nations,  as  with  individuals,  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  standing  still.  Advance  or 
retreat  is  the  law  of  nature  :  as  one  climb- 
ing the  heights  of  Shasta  finds  ice,  a  sure 
foothold  for  the  time  he  needs  to  reach  up 
higher,  and  no  more ;  firm  vantage-ground 
if  he  does  but  use  it  for  climbing,  for  re- 
newed efforts ;  melting  snows,  and  shifting, 
treacherous  foundations,  if  he  attempts  to 
remain. 

Since  men  died  to  establish  a  republic, 
men  must  live  to  preserve  it. 


20  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

Freedom  exacts  its  price.  Rights  have 
their  equivalent  responsibilities.  Liberty 
imposes  obligations. 

We  will  be  our  own  sovereign.  We  must, 
then,  govern,  or  meet  the  fate  of  all  govern- 
ments without  a  head,  or  with  a  head  that 
yields  its  duties  to  favorites  who  may  or 
may  not  be  inefficient  or  corrupt,  but  who 
certainly  will  be  careless  if  they  are  sure 
they  are  unwatched  and  unregarded  by  their 
chief. 

Who  governs  America  to-day  ?  The  peo- 
ple ?  Nobody  believes  it.  It  is  governed  by 
the  politicians  whose  trade,  whose  business, 
it  is.  Men  of  education,  of  intelligence,  of 
ambition,  are  too  busy  about  their  own  per- 
sonal gains  and  gettings  and  spendings  to 
hew  the  planks  of  platforms,  or  to  investi- 
gate the  character  of  those  who  are  to  stand 
upon  them,  or  to  see  that  the  platform  is 
rightly  supported. 

It  is  something  to  make  a  good  law :  it  is 
more  to  see  that  it  is  executed.  It  is  some- 
thing to  secure  a  good  servant:  it  is  more 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  21 

to  watch  that  the  work  of  that  servant  is 
well  done,  and  that  the  commendation  of 
"  Well  done  "  and  the  condemnation  of  "  111 
done  "  be  alike  spoken  in  due  season. 

This  man  will  be  a  sovereign  in  a  land 
where  the  people  rule,  yet  he  will  not  go  to 
the  place  where  government  is  made.  For 
government  is  not  made  at  Washington,  at 
Albany,  at  Atlanta,  at  Springfield,  at  Sacra- 
mento. It  is  made  at  the  primary  meeting. 

"  No,"  says  this  fastidious  citizen.  "  It  is 
asking  too  much  of  me  to  go  to  that  villan- 
ous  place,  to  be  elbowed  by  the  rabble,  and 
to  be  bullied  by  the  pot-house  politicians 
who  will  be  in  full  possession.  I  have  not 
the  tune  to  spare,  even  had  I  the  inclination 
for  such  companionship.  I  have  my  bank, 
or  my  office,  or  my  fields,  or  my  shop,  or  my 
ledger,  or  my  factory,  or  my  profession,  to 
look  after.  When  election-day  comes,  I  will 
do  my  duty,  —  if  I  remember  it,  —  and  vote, 
if,  by  chance,  there  is  a  decent  man  on  the 
ticket." 

Meanwhile    the     "  villanous    place  "    is 


22  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

crowded  by  the  ignorant  if  not  the  vicious, 
by  the  uninstructed  foreigner,  or  the  unen- 
lightened American,  —  material  for  "  re- 
peaters "  controlled  by  unscrupulous  holders 
of  public  trusts. 

Meanwhile  the  platform,  built  by  these 
hands,  is  full  often  builded  of  rotten  planks, 
or  of  wind  that  has  a  semblance  of  solidity. 

Meanwhile  plans  are  laid,  and  men  se- 
lected, that  will  control  banking  interests, 
mechanic  interests,  manufacturing  interests, 
farming  interests,  professional  interests,  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  all  the  interests  of  the 
people  of  the  land.  And,  when  election-day 
comes,  the  intelligent  and  tax-paying  citizen 
has  no  more  freedom  of  action  than  the  gal- 
ley-slave chained  to  his  oar.  Chained  by 
this  machinery  of  party,  he  votes  a  straight 
ticket,  —  votes  for  measures  his  conscience 
condemns,  and  for  men  he  despises  or  dis- 
trusts, —  or  he  scratches  his  ticket,  or  bolts. 
That  is,  he  foregoes  his  right  of  citizenship, 
is  without  voice  or  representation  in  the  in- 
coming government  and  man. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  23 

He  prostitutes  his  vote,  or  lie  loses  it. 

Or,  he  does  not  so  much  as  take  it  into  his 
hand,  or  even  remember  it.  He  has  not  the' 
interest  to  touch  it  at  all.  "Election-day! 
forgot  all  about  it." 

"  Vote  ?    No.     I've  been  too  busy." 

And  having  forgotten,  or  been  too  busy,  to 
take  care  of  his  own  rights  and  interests, 
when  laws  curtail  and  taxes  press  heavily 
upon  these  same  rights  and  interests,  he  cries 
out  against  the  iniquities  of  the  politicians, 
and  the  ignorance  of  the  voters;  and  won- 
ders whether,  "  after  all,  republican  institu- 
tions are  not  a  failure." 

So  far  as  they  are  to  be  supported  by,  and 
to  live  through  Am,  they  certainly  are. 

The  Republic  stands  like  the  image  seen  in 
the  king's  vision,  —  in  brightness,  excellent ; 
in  form,  terrible ;  its  head  of  fine  gold ;  its 
body  and  its  limbs  of  silver,  of  brass,  and  of 
iron ;  its  feet  part  of  iron,  but  mixed  with 
miry  clay. 

And  what  was  the  fate  of  the  image  when 
a  weight  fell  upon  these  feet,  —  poor,  weak, 


24  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

uncertain  feet,  —  heavier  than  they  could 
bear  ?  They  broke  in  pieces  ;  and  with  them 
the  clay,  the  iron,  the  brass,  the  silver,  and 
the  gold  broke  in  pieces  together,  and  became 
like  the  chaff  of  the  summer  threshing-floors. 
If  the  statue  of  America  is  to  stand,  it 
must  be  upon  feet  of  granite  planted  on 
everlasting  foundations.  If  it  is  to  stand 
secure,  it  must  be  by  the  fine  gold  of  thought, 
the  silver  of  purity,  the  brass  of  endurance, 
the  iron  of  solidity,  taking  the  place  of  the 
mire  and  the  clay.  It  must  be  sound  from 
toe  to  head,  genuine  all  through. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  25 


rv. 

IT  is  a  horrible  thing,  the  way  that  men 
talk  of  this  duty  of  citizenship  as  a  work 
of  small  worth,  of  slight  dignity,  of  insignifi- 
cant moment. 

What,  then,  do  we  call  this  country  of 
ours?  What  future  depends  on  the  action 
of  this  present?  What  causes  are  here  at 
stake  ? 

In  ancient  times,  before  a  candidate 
received  the  honors  of  knighthood,  he  passed 
the  preceding  hours  of  darkness  in  vigils,  in 
fasting,  in  prayer.  He  who  was  to  defend 
beauty  and  truth,  the  cause  of  ladies'  honor, 
the  sovereignty  of  the  king,  the  glory  of  the 
cross,  must  enter  upon  his  task  with  no  gay-- 
ety  nor  thoughtlessness.  Feasting  and  mirth 
were  not  for  him,  but  solitude  and  supplica- 
tions. 


26  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

The  spirit  that  animated  the  knight  of  old 
should  inspire  the  voter  of  to-day.  In  his 
hand  he  holds  'the  destinies  of  a  nation, 
and  what  a  nation !  The  cause  of  order,  of 
law,  of  good  government;  questions  educa- 
tional, social,  political,  moral;  the  weal  or 
the  woe  of  millions  of  individuals, — lie  in 
the  scraps  of  white  paper  that  nutter  down 
noiselessly  into  ballot-boxes.  No  army  of 
Europe  decides  such  contests.  No  crowned 
head  of  the  Old  World  solves  such  problems 
as  those  presented  to  the  voter  of  to-day. 

The  eve  of  election  should  be  to  him  a 
vigil,  and  his  action  at  the  polls  a  sacra- 
ment. 

A  republic,  to  live  and  -to  grow,  must  be 
planted  in  ground  that  is  shot  through  and 
through,  vivified,  by  what  in  brief  is  the 
essential  essence  of  Christianity :  on  the  one 
side  a  recognition  of  the  brotherhood  of 
humanity,  on  the  other  a  full  acceptance  of 
the  doctrine  of  individual  responsibility;  by 
each  man  saying,  "  If  the  work  is  to  be  done, 
it  is  to  be  by  my  doing  it,"  and  then  doing  it ; 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  27 

and  by  helping  any  of  the  lame,  the  deaf, 
and  the  blind,  he  may  find  by  the  way. 

To  himself  make  the  laws  by  his  matured 
thought  crystallized  into  law,  to  himself  elect 
the  men  who'  are  to  execute  these  laws,  —  even 
with  all  this  accomplished,  the  labor  of  the 
sovereign  citizen  is  not  done.  He  belongs  to 
a  body  politic  ;  and  though  his  hand  is  clean 
and  whole,  if  there  is  spot  of  disease,  taint  of 
mortality,  in  some  other  member,  for  his  own 
sake,  if  for  no  other  reason,  he  must  see  taint 
cleansed,  disease  destroyed,  if  the  whole  body 
is  not  to  be  marred,  and  in  time  fall  into 
decay  and  death  together. 

In  a  peculiar  sense  is  it  true  that  in  this 
country  no  man  lives,  can  live,  to  himself,  for 
himself  alone. 

Here  are  these  millions  invited  to  our 
midst,  to  toil  for  us,  to  be  our  hewers  of 
wood,  and  drawers  of  water,  to  be  our 
road-makers,  and  bridge-builders,  —  coming 
whence  they  do,  the  sure  foundations  of 
tyranny  and  injustice  here,  —  since  there  is 
no  such  certain  school  of  despotism  as 


28  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

slavery.  Here  are  the  four  millions  of  peo- 
ple, but  yesterday  chattels,  to-day  intrusted 
with  their  own  destinies,  and,  in  part,  the 
destinies  of  a  nation.  Here  are  the  millions 
of  whites  long  held  by  the  other  end  of  the 
chain  that  secured  slaves,  —  little  versed  in 
the  education  of  books ;  unenlightened  as  to 
the  real  meaning  and  import  of  republican 
citizenship,  —  its  first  meaning  being  an 
understanding  of  one's  own  duties,  and  a 
thorough  respect  for  the  rights  of  others. 

All  these  millions,  multiplying,  doubling 
in  their  homes,  and  in  their  weight  of  num- 
bers in  the  government. 

These  are  they  who  constitute  the  "re- 
peaters "  in  Northern  cities,  the  supporters 
of  "  carpet-bag  "  stealings  and  oppressions 
in  Southern  sections,  the  upholders  of  men 
whose  theories  strike  at  the  integrity  of  the 
nation,  and  whose  practices  are  to  live  and 
grow  rich  on  the  toil  and  degradation  of 
their  fellows. 

Ignorance  underlies  their  action.  In 
myriads  of  cases  they  would  do  the  right, 
and  yet  the  wrong  pursue. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  29 

The  men  who  come  here  from  foreign 
lands  come  hoping  for  the  blessings  of  lib- 
erty and  the  advantages  of  freedom.  Does 
any  one  suppose  that  these  men  discredit 
liberty  and  jeopardize  free  institutions  with 
malice  aforethought,  and  understanding  the 
import  of  what  they  do  ? 

They  are  tools  in  the  hands  of  selfish 
manipulators ;  and  those  who  cry  or  curse 
under  the  injuries  these  tools  inflict,  yet 
make  no  effort  to  work  a  transformation,  of 
comparatively  easy  accomplishment,  whereby 
a  tool  is  changed  to  a  man. 

The  Republic  was  so  dear  a  thing  to  the 
slaves,  that  they  were  willing  to  die  for  it, 
when  it  meant  for  them  only  a  possible  free- 
dom, and  that  afar  off.  Does  any  one  sup- 
pose these  freedmen  support  the  men  and 
measures  that  bring  shame  on  the  nation's 
name  and  cause  alike,  comprehending  the 
mischief  that  is  wrought  ? 

Alas  for  them !  In  what  schools  have 
they  been  trained  ?  Where  enlightened  ? 
For  our  own  cause  and  sake  we  have  com- 


30  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

manded  them  to  vote.  In  our  own  defence 
we  have  armed  them  with  this  tremendous 
weapon,  yet  have  left  them  to  their  own 
methods,  uninstructed  and  undrilled  in  its 
use ;  and  when,  groping  through  a  sort  of 
twilight,  they  confound  friend  with  foe, 
spare  where  they  should  destroy,  and  destroy 
where  they  should  spare,  we  cry  aloud  over 
what  is  the  result  of  our  indifference  and 
selfishness,  and  account  the  misfortune  of 
their  ignorance  unto  them  for  crime. 

The  multitudes  who  supported  at  the 
polls,  who  died  on  the  field  for  an  oligarchy 
that  deprived  them  of  land,  of  homes,  of 
schools,  of  skill,  —  that  robbed  them  of 
knowledge,  of  opportunity,  of  a  heritage 
of  honorable  toil  and  successful  endeavor,  — 
when  they  so  bowed  and  fell,  did  they  realize 
what  power  crushed  them  ? 

These  multitudes,  in  still  supporting  this 
oligarchy,  in  hating  a  flag,  and  fighting  a 
government  that  will  guarantee  them  lands, 
homes,  schools,  industry,  enlightenment,  ad- 
vance, triumphs  as  individuals,  and  triumphs 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  31 

as  citizens,  —  in  so  turning  the  knife  upon 
themselves,  do  they  know  they  are  commit- 
ting suicide  ? 

It  is  a  question  that  needs  no  answer. 


32  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


V. 

WE  would  do  well  to  sit  down  and  pon- 
der the  lesson  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war. 
What  triumphed  at  Sedan?  Superior  fight- 
ing ?  Superior  numbers  ?  Superior  gen- 
eralship ?  Superior  weight  ?  The  weight, 
the  fighting,  the  numbers,  the  generalship, 
that  triumphed  at  Sedan  was  the  school- 
master :  because  France,  the  France  of  half 
a  century  ago,  the  France  that  overran 
Europe,  and  won  the  crown  of  the  world,  — 
because  this  France  numbered,  in  fifty-five 
out  of  its  eighty-nine  departments,  a  per- 
centage of  from  thirty  to  seventy-five  who 
could  neither  read  nor  write ;  because  one- 
third  of  its  people  were  absolutely  illiterate ; 
because  the  wealth,  the  intelligence,  the  art, 
the  science,  the  reason,  the  judgment,  of  the 
land  were  out-voted,  and  down-voted,  and 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  33 

run  over  to  the  battle-field,  by  millions  of 
ignorant  peasants;  unwilling  and  unready 
were  forced  to  meet  an  enemy,  down  whose 
long  line  stood  not  a  man  who  could  not 
read  in,  as  well  as  fight  for  his  fatherland ; 
and  spell,  as  well  as  battle,  for  German  unity. 

"  A  good  lesson  for  Europe  !  "  "  We  will 
pass  it  on  to  those  who  need  it."  "  A  sug- 
gestive fact  to  be  studied  by  the  despots, 
and  the  slaves  of  effete  civilizations  and  rot- 
ten aristocracies."  "  We,  —  we  have  no 
part  nor  lot  in  it.  We  are  safe,  and  with  no 
need  of  warning." 

Is  it  so  ? 

How  many  people  in  this  country  of  free 
schools,  of  general  education,  of  universal 
enlightenment,  cannot  read  and  write  ? 

"  Oh,  a  few  hundreds  !  "  "  Maybe  a  few 
thousands  !  "  "  Perhaps,"  says  some  soul 
full  of  audacity,  "  perhaps  a  hundred  thou- 
sand." 

Let  the  last  census  tell  us.  38,558,371 
people  in  the  land.  Of  these,  28,238,945  are 
ten  years  of  age  and  upwards.  Of  these 


34  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

twenty-eight  and  odd  millions,  5,658,144  can 
neither  read  nor  write ;  in  brief,  one-fifth  of 
this  part  of  the  population. 

"  Ignorant  foreigners, "  you  say,  "  who  will 
speedily  be  transformed  in  this  new  school 
of  freedom ;  whose  children  will  surpass 
them,  as  they  will  surpass,  in  brief  time, 
their  old  selves." 

Let  the  figures  respond.  777,864  are  for- 
eign born  ;  4,882,280  are  of  native  growth. 

"  Children  who  have  all  time  yet  before 
them,  —  an  abundance  of  opportunity,  as 
yet  simply  unused." 

Again  speak,  O  harsh  and  homely  truth ! 

There  are  eighteen  millions  and  a  half — to 
be  accurate,  18,536,000  —  people  who  have 
numbered  their  twenty-one  years.  Of  these, 
3,715,196,  one-fifth  of  the  entire  adult  popu- 
lation, are  to  be  ranked  under  the  head  of 
illiterate. 

Seventeen  per  cent  of  men  who  are  voters  ; 
twenty-three  per  cent  of  women  who  are, 
or  are  to  be,  the  mothers  of  voters,  perhaps 
to  be  voters  themselves,  —  in  this  black  cate- 
gory. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  35 

"  Blacks ! "  Triumph  not  so  soon,  my 
Saxon  reader.  Indians,  negroes,  Chinamen, 
all  combined,  can  throw  into  their  side  of 
the  scale,  2,778,601.  Thy  race  and  mine 
weigh  down  our  side  with  2,879,543. 

Five  millions  and  a  half  of  people  who 
cannot  read,  in  a  country  whose  sole  endur- 
ing prosperity  must  depend  upon  the  en- 
lightened content  and  action  of  its  masses. 

"  We  not  need  the  lesson  !  "  We  need  it 
as  do  no  other  people  upon  whom  the  sun 
shines  this  day. 

If  these  people  themselves  know  so  little, 
they  know  not  enough  to  demand  and  secure 
the  advantages  of  education  for  their  chil- 
dren. Even  those  who  have  had  a  modicum 
of  education  thrust  upon  them  appreciate 
the  enforced  gift  so  slightly,  as  in  many  a 
case  to  willingly  shut  the  window,  and  bar 
out  the  few  beams  that  might  straggle  in  to 
the  children  who  are  at  their  mercy. 

The  poor  man,  living  as  the  animal  crea- 
tion lives,  filling  his  home  with  offspring, 
without  more  thought  than  the  birds  or  the 

3 


36  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

beasts  as  to  the  future,  throws  upon  them, 
in  part  at  least,  the  burthen  of  their  own 
support;  thrusting  upon  the  years  of  child- 
hood, that  should  be  given  to  growth  and 
absorption,  the  tasks  and  responsibilities  of 
maturity. 

The  selfish  and  greedy  gatherer  sees  in  his 
child  a  hand  that  can  add  to  his  store ;  and 
BO  uses  it,  though  the  hand  be  thereby  left 
untrained  to  do  any  successful  gathering  for 
itself  in  the  years  to  come,  and  the  head 
that  should  master  it  is  left  to  life-long 
bondage. 

The  second  generation  of  Irish,  the  chil- 
dren of  emigrants  who  are  the  delvers  in 
mines,  the  workers  of  shuttles  and  looms, 
are,  in  myriads  of  cases,  illustrations  of  a 
descending  scale  of  humanity,  and  material 
for  citizenship.  The  parents,  if  they  have 
not  been  sent  to  the  school  in  their  child- 
hood, have  frisked  in  wind  and  weather,  air 
and  sunshine,  and  have  good  stock  of  bodily 
strength,  if  not  of  mental  training.  But 
these  little  ones,  driving  mules  through  sub- 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  37 

terranean  passages,  or  nailed  to  the  swift- 
flying  machinery  in  stifling  rooms,  deprived 
alike  of  savage  freedom  and  of  civilized  cul- 
ture, are  stunted  in  both  mind  and  body,  in  a 
country  that  has  promised  them  freedom  of 
growth,  the  growth  of  which  they  can  stunt 
and  distort  in  turn. 

The  negroes  of  the  South,  who  have  sprung 
from  childhood  to  maturity  since  liberty  was 
proclaimed  throughout  the  land,  instead  of 
being  an  improvement  on  their  fathers  and 
mothers  bred  in  slavery,  are  a  deterioration. 
The  freed  man  and  woman  had  a  double 
incentive  to  study,  —  the  natural  rebound 
of  the  mind  from  enforced  ignorance,  and 
the  desire  to  secure  that  that  by  pains  and 
penalties,  whippings  and  punishments,  had 
been  denied  them. 

Illiteracy  was  a  badge  of  slavery.  To  read, 
to  write,  were  powers  as  unattainable  to  the 
slave  as  the  master's  color,  or  the  master's 
position.  To  own  a  book,  to  read  a  book, 
were  the  sure  proofs  of  freedom.  To  do  the 
thing  one  has  been  forbidden  to  do,  is  one  of 
the  inalienable  rights  of  humanity. 


38  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

But  these  men  and  women,  having  gained 
somewhat  for  themselves,  have  small  wish  to 
thrust  the  unasked  and  undesired  gift  upon 
their  children.  They  worked  for  massa. 
These  can  work  for  them,  and,  by  picking  up 
a  few  pennies  through  desultory  labor,  sub- 
tract slightly  from  their  parents'  penny,  and 
add  enormously  to  the  sum  total  of  that  of 
their  own  and  the  nation's  poverty. 

The  German  who  comes  among  us  can 
read  and  write.  He  has  been  held  by  the 
throat,  and  so  much  of  .wholesome  knowledge 
crammed  down  it,  whether  he  would  or  not. 
He  has  escaped  from  tyranny ;  he  is  the  citi- 
zen of  a  land  of  freedom.  He  can  do  what 
he  will  with  his  own.  There  is  no  law  for 
the  public  weal  constraining  him.  He  is 
thrifty,  saving,  "forehanded  :  "  he  will  have  a 
cottage,  some  fields,  a  home.  He  will  get 
on  in  the  world.  He  will  have  many  children ; 
and  these  shall  be  sent,  not  to  school  to  be 
educated  for  the  benefit  of  the  state,  —  as  he 
has  been,  —  but  shall  be  sent  into  the  field, 
or  the  mill,  or  the  shop,  to  gather  for  his  ben- 
efit, and  accumulate  for  his  prosperity. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  39 


VI. 

WELL,  you  say,  what  is  to  be  done  ?  We 
have  established  an  admirable  school  system ; 
•we  have  built  schoolhouses ;  we  appoint 
teachers ;  we  pay  our  taxes ;  we  elect  officers 
of  the  law  to  see  that  these  matters  and  these 
people  are  looked  after.  Nothing  more 
remains.  If  any  prefer  to  be  ignorant,  help- 
less, vicious,  criminal,  let  them  pay  the 
penalty. 

Meanwhile  we  too  suffer,  —  as  we  ought. 

We  have  done  all  we  could,  and  more  than 
any  one  has  the  right  to  demand  of  us.  You 
certainly  cannot  expect  us  to  go  into  the 
highways  and  byways,  and  call  aloud,  and 
even  compel  these  children  to  come  in. 

Even  so. 

The  man  who  reads  this,  and  who  so 
speaks,  lives  on  some  broad  avenue,  or  some 


40  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

cleanly  and  wholesome  street.  Day  by  day 
lie  comes  out  of  the  front  doorway  of  his 
house,  and  meets  people  who  live  in  homes, 
and  among  surroundings,  like  unto  his  own. 

He  knows  that  the  rear  windows  and  door- 
ways of  his  house  look  out  on  narrow  winding 
alleys,  or  over  crowded  courts,  or  filthy 
streets.  He  knows  it.  He  does  not  realize  it. 

He  knows  that  human  beings  are  packed 
into  vile  dens,  or  rotting  tenements,  swarm- 
ing from  stifling  garret  to  mouldy  cellar. 
He  knows  that  out  of  this  over-crowding, 
under-feeding,  filth,  and  wretchedness,  disease 
is  born,  and  stalks  day  by  day  gathering  its 
multitudes  from  left  and  right.  He  knows  it. 
He  does  not  realize  it. 

He  knows  that  consumption  is  stalking 
through  the  alley ;  aches  and  pains,  shivering 
chills  and  burning  fevers,  are  stalking  through 
the  alley.  He  knows  it.  He  does  not  realize 
it. 

By  and  by  he  hears  that,  following  this 
ghastly  procession,  the  loathsome  giant  of 
small-pox  is  stalking  through  the  alley. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  41 

Then  what  does  he  ? 

Does  he  say,  There  are  the  city  ordi- 
nances. There  is  the  Board  of  Health.  There 
are  the  laws  and  the  officers  for  such  emer- 
gencies. I  elected  them ;  if  I  didn't,  some- 
body else  did.  My  taxes  help  support  them. 
If  they  choose  to  neglect  their  duty,  what's 
that  to  me  ?  It  is  no  concern  of  mine. 

Is  that  what  the  man  says? 

Or,  does  he  say,  —  It  would  be  a  pity  for 
the  law  to  interfere  with  those  children :  I 
hear  it  is  children  who  are  dying  of  that 
horrible  disease.  Poor  little  wretches  !  What 
possible  future  is  before  them  ?  They  will  be 
infinitely  better  off  out  of  this  world.  It  is 
thwarting  Providence  to  compel  them  to  live. 
It  is  a  good  fate  that  has  befallen  them.  Let 
them  die  unmolested. 

Is  that  what  he  says  ? 

Or,  more  mercifully  disposed,  does  he  say,  — 
There  is  no  doubt  those  health  officers  do 
not  half  attend  to  their  duty.  I  will  tell  my 
family  physician  to  step  into  the  alley,  and 
see  what  he  can  do  to  alleviate  its  misery. 


42  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

And  his  family  physician  coming  back, 
announcing  that  the  ignorant  wretches  who 
there  abide  are  afraid  of  him  and  his  medi- 
cines and  his  interference,  and  will  have  none 
of  him  and  his  work,  does  the  man  answer,  — 
Very  well :  a  man's,  house  is  his  castle.  I 
cannot  force  entrance  even  to  save  his  life. 
If  he  will  die,  my  hands  are  clean,  and  my 
skirts  clear. 

Is  that  what  he  says  and  does  ? 

The  man  knows  that  sweeping  up  from 
the  infected  alley,  borne  on  the  wings  of 
the  wind,  impalpable,  intangible,  disease 
loathsome,  death  awful,  are  being  carried 
towards  the  rear  windows  and  rear  doorways 
of  his  own  home.  And  if  health  laws  are 
insufficient,  if  health  officers  are  careless, 
are  slow,  are  inefficient,  he  rushes  himself  to 
the  alley.  Do  the  people  bar  window,  and 
lock  door,  door  and  window  must  give  way. 
Do  they  cry,  "  This  is  mine  !  you  shall  not 
interfere,  you  shall  not  enter ! "  they  are 
swept  aside  while  the  little  perishing 
wretches  are  carried  away  to  the  hospital  in 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  43 

which  they  can  be  nursed  and  nourished  into 
life  and  health  once  more,  while  the  pestifer- 
ous place  is  fumigated  and  cleaned. 

He  does  it ;  and  he  has  the  right  to  do  it, 
by  that  first  law  of  nature,  —  self-preserva- 
tion. 

There  is  no  disease  more  subtly  pene- 
trating, none  more  destructive,  more  surely 
death  freighted  to  such  a  government  as 
ours,  than  that  of  ignorance.  And  if  those 
who  are  infected,  having  the  means  provided 
to  wash  and  be  made  whole,  refuse  so  to  do, 
then,  in  self-defence,  we  ought  to  see  that 
the  means  they  reject  are  used,  and  used  effi- 
ciently to  a  healing  and  wholesome  end. 

We  need  a  moral  nuisance  Board  of 
Health,  backed  by  the  active  support  of. 
every  decent  and  vigorous  element  in  the 
community. 

And  this  should  be  done  in  behalf  of  the 
tax-payer,  in  behalf  of  the  child,  in  behalf 
of  the  general  weal. 

The  state  has  the  right  to  do  whatever  it 
believes  essential  to  the  preservation  of  its 
sacurity,  prosperity,  and  life. 


44  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

Upon  this  belief  is  the  system  of  free 
schools  founded.  Upon  this  belief  is  levied 
the  general  tax  for  its  support,  demanded  by 
State  law,  collected  by  State  authority. 

The  State  comes  into  a  man's  house,  and 
says  to  him,  —  I  take  your  money  for  the 
public  good ;  and,  since  it  is  for  the  public 
good,  you  cannot  refuse,  and  no  man  may 
hinder.  I  take  it  from  you,  a  property- 
holder,  because  a  republican  government 
cannot  live  unless  there  be  intelligence 
among  the  people.  Unless  the  masses  are 
educated,  there  can  be  no  security  to  life  and 
property.  In  many  a  case  such  a  tax-payer 
as  you  may  receive  no  direct  benefit  from 
the  money  claimed,  since  the  heaviest  tax- 
payers are  not  those  who  usually  send  their 
children  to  the  public  schools:  yet  advan- 
tage comes  in  the  maintenance  of  good  laws, 
and  the  increased  security  to  life  and  prop- 
erty which  education  brings. 

Such  as  he  may  properly  exact,  and  ought 
to  exact,  that  the  money  he  is  compelled  to 
surrender  for  the  education  of  the  people 
shall  accomplish  that  result. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  45 

There  can  be  no  debatable  ground  here. 
If  the  State  asks,  and,  when  it  is  not  given, 
arbitrarily  takes,  from  its  citizens  money 
enough  to  support  its  schools  thirty  or  forty 
weeks  in  the  year,  its  citizens  should  stipu- 
late that  the  State  shall  compel  the  attend- 
ance of  children  thirty  or  forty  weeks  in 
the  year. 

If  the  one  law  is  just,  the  other  must  be 
equally  just. 

If  public  opinion  assents  to  the  unquali- 
fied right  of  the  State  to  force  a  man  to  sus- 
tain schools  for  the  benefit  of  his  neighbor's 
children,  that  he  may  be  indirectly  bene- 
fited in  turn,  the  man  has  an  equally 
unqualified  right  to  claim  of  the  State  that 
it  educate  his  neighbor's  children,  or  be 
branded  as  a  spender  or  waster  of  money 
exacted  under  false  pretences. 

Take,  for  illustration,  two  of  the  States 
that  have  the  best  school  laws  in  the  coun- 
try —  Massachusetts  in  the  East,  Illinois  in 
the  West. 

In  Massachusetts,  one-fifth  of  the  whole 
expenses  of  public  schools  are  lost  through 


46  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

absenteeism;  and  in  some  towns  the  per- 
centage of  attendance  is  as  low  as  sixty. 

In  Illinois,  with  truant  laws  in  force,  the 
average  percentage  of  absenteeism  for  the 
last  ten  years  has  been  about  19.  One 
out  of  every  five  or  six  has  not  been  so 
much  as  enrolled  in  school.  Of  those  who 
are  registered,  not  more  than  forty-five  per 
cent  are  in  regular  daily  attendance  during 
the  time  provided  for  them  by  the  State,  — 
six  and  a  half  months. 

The  public-school  fund — raised  by  the 
State  from  the  people  of  the  State,  with  the 
direct  pledge  that  it  should  be  used  only  for 
school  purposes,  and  with  the  direct  asser- 
tion that  the  amount  raised  was  the  amount 
needed  —  has  been  used  only  for  school  pur- 
poses, but  has  been  used  in  such  manner 
that  more  than  one-half  of  it  has  been  ac- 
tually thrown  away. 

The  citizen  may  well  say,  —  I  am  taxed  to 
support  schools  for  all  the  children  in  the 
State,  through  six  months  and  a  half  in  the 
year.  One-fifth  of  these  children  do  not 


A  PAYING  INTESTMENT.  47 

attend  at  all ;  and  one-half  of  the  remaining 
four-fifths  are  in  attendance  less  than  one- 
half  the  time.  More  than  one-half  of  my 
tax,  then,  is  extortion. 

Here  is  a  suggestive  summary  from  the 
last  census  :  —  The  school  population  of  the 
United  States  is  thirteen  millions,  eight  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  thousand.  Of  this 
number  but  eight  millions  and  ninety  thou- 
sand are  enrolled  in  any  school.  Of  these 
but  four  millions,  five  hundred  and  ninety- 
one  thousand  are  in  average  daily  attendance. 

In  a  word,  in  behalf  of  the  tax-payer, 
study  in  school  should  be  compulsory  for  the 
child,  for  the  same  term  through  which  the 
maintenance  of  the  school  is  compulsory  for 
the  tax-payer. 

An  equitable  law  for  tax-payer  and  child 
alike. 

The  school  code  of  Brunswick,  Luneberg, 
so  long  ago  as  1738,  enacted  that  "parents 
must  not  imagine,  that,  because  the  children 
are  theirs,  they  can  do  with  them  what  they 
please,  but  must  remember  that  their  chil- 


48  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

dren  are  also  members  of  the  commonwealth ; 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  government  to 
have  them  educated,  in  order  that  the  coun- 
try may  not  be  peopled  by  illiterate,  brutal, 
and  ill-mannered  inhabitants." 

The  child  is  the  ward  of  the  State.  If, 
socially,  no  one  may  come  between  a  parent's 
right  and  a  child's  duty ;  politically,  no  one, 
whatever  his  relation,  may  come  between  the 
State  and  its  subject. 

A  man  has  no  right  to  pursue  a  course 
that  will  certainly  burthen  society  with  crim- 
inals and  paupers.  If  such  tendency  is  man- 
ifest, society  has  the  right  to  coerce  him  in 
self-defence. 

If  the  State  protects  the  father's  field  from 
the  spoiler,  it  should  equally  protect  the 
child's  field  of  the  mind. 

The  State  asserts  its  power  and  duty  to 
restrain  the  parent  who  would  dwarf  tha 
body  or  maun  the  limbs  of  his  child.  To 
dwarf  the  brain,  and  maim  the  intellect, 
ought  to  be  regarded  as  worse  than  disabling 
the  body;  more  harmful  to  the  child,  and 
freighted  with  worse  calamities  to  the  nation. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  49 

The  system  of  compulsion  protects  the 
rights  of  the  child,  while  it  enforces  the  du- 
ties of  the  parent.  To  enforce  duties  is  not 
an  invasion  of  rights. 

For  the  State  to  provide  education  for 
every  child,  but  fail  to  provide  that  every 
child  shall  qualify  himself  by  such  education 
for  citizenship,  is  to  maintain  that  the  right 
of  the  parent  to  perpetuate  ignorance  —  and, 
in  consequence,  thriftlessness,  intemperance, 
and  crime  —  is  above  the  right  of  the  child 
to  be  educated,  and  the  right  of  the  State  to 
self-preservation. 

Chancellor  Kent  once  said,  "  The  parent 
who  sends  his  son  into  the  world  uneducated 
defrauds  the  community  of  a  useful  citizen, 
and  bequeathes  a  nuisance." 

The  State  should  abate  and  abolish  nui- 
sances. 

It  enforces  the  right  to  send  back  from  its 
shores  paupers  and  criminals  already  raised. 
It  should  enforce  the  right  to  prevent  their 
being  raised  in  its  midst. 

Criminals  and  paupers  are  not  created: 
they  grow. 


50  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

It  holds  that  the  majority  shall  rule.  The 
majority  has  decided,  from  the  foundations 
of  this  government,  that  the  entire  body 
of  its  people  shall  be  educated:  yet  it 
supinely  consents  to  the  constant  imped- 
ing and  violation  of  this  law,  and  tamely 
submits  to  the  incessant  overthrow  of  the 
will  of  the  intelligent  majority,  by  the  reck- 
less or  selfish  minority. 

It  grants  to  all  its  male  citizens,  not  dis- 
qualified by  crime,  the  authority  of  the 
ballot.  Suffrage  is  power  over  others  ;  and, 
to  power  over  others,  no  right  can  possibly 
exist.  Whoever  wishes  to  exercise  it  is 
bound  to  acquire  the  necessary  qualifica- 
tions, as  far  as  their  acquisition  is  practicable 
to  him;  and  the  conditions  should  be  such 
as  all  can  fulfil.  An  educational  condition, 
and  that  of  no  mean  order,  is  one  that  the 
poorest  can,  and  that  the  poorest  should  be 
compelled  to,  fulfil. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  51 


vn. 

NOB  has  the  good  citizen  completed  his 
duty  to  his  neighbor,  and  his  service  to  soci- 
ety, and  through  these  gained  a  profit  for 
himself,  when  he  has  exacted  of  the  State 
that  it  put  the  rudiments  of  book-knowledge 
within  reach  of  every  childish  hand,  and 
compel  every  childish  hand  to  take  hold. 

Four-fifths  of  the  industry  of  the  country 
is  dependent  upon  occupations  for  which 
there  is  need  of  special  training ;  occupa- 
tions that  receive  abundant  aid  from  the 
governments  of  Europe,  for  which  abso- 
lutely nothing  is  here  done  by  authority  of 
the  States;  occupations  that  are  largely 
filled  by  discontented  men,  who  wreak  their 
discontent  upon  society,  causing  all  to  suffer 
by  the  blundering  methods  they  adopt  to 
improve  the  conditions  with  which  they  are 
dissatisfied. 


52  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

Let  us  hear  what  these  men  say,  —  not  at 
second  hand.  One  of  their  number,  speaking 
officially,  asserts  in  brief  that  "these  hand- 
workers have  done  enough  to  make  all  the 
enormous  surplus  wealth  in  the  world.  Of 
their  creation,  it  should  be  in  their  posses- 
sion; if  not  by  peaceable  means,  then  by 
some  means." 

If  this  indeed  be  so,  by  what  method  do 
these  men  themselves  propose  to  remedy  this 
evil? 

"What  plans  have  they  formed,  what  efforts 
put  forth  in  their  own  behalf  ? 

They  have  banded  themselves  together, 
to  fight  what  they  call  the  common  enemy, 
in  organizations  that  are  known  as  trades 
unions.  They  fight  this  common  enemy  by 
a  species  of  warfare  known  as  strikes. 

They  demand  legislation  hi  aid  of  their 
side,  and  against  this  common  enemy,  touch- 
ing directly  the  hours  of  work,  and  indirectly 
through  these  the  price  of  labor. 

What  are  these  unions?  They  might  be 
associations  to  cure  the  sick,  help  the  weak, 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  53 

reward  the  strong;  associations  to  foster 
skill,  spread  intelligence,  grasp  power,  by 
broadening  knowledge,  which  is  power. 

We  have  come  to  the  sort  of  labor  wherein 
what  a  man  is  stamps  itself  upon  what  he 
does,  in  even  the  humblest  forms  of  industry. 
To  elevate  work,  through  this  to  increase 
its  compensation,  the  only  speedy,  nay,  the 
only  sure  way,  is  to  elevate  the  workman. 

Do  these  organizations,  then,  labor  to  this 
end? 

The  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  their  busi- 
ness-creed is  to  crowd  up  wages  by  narrow- 
ing competition  and  restricting  skill. 

One  apprentice  to  four  journeymen ;  one 
to  seven;  nay,  even,  in  some  cases,  one  to 
ten,  —  say  they. 

The  world  is  widening  in  numbers.  Num- 
bers widen  demand.  Instead  of  one  trained 
workman  to  take  the  place  of  four,  there 
should  be  four  in  training  to  take  the  place 
of  one. 

So  far  from  stimulating  the  weak,  and 
rewarding  the  ambitious,  they  reduce  one 


54  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

and  all  to  a  common  basis.  So  many  hours 
a  day,  work  for  all ;  so  much  wage  a  day, 
pay  for  all,  —  a  universal  levelling  -  down 
process. 

To  compel  the  employer  to  pay  an  ineffi- 
cient workman  more  than  that  workman  is 
worth,  will  compel  him,  in  self-defence,  to 
pay  an  efficient  workman  less  than  such  an 
one  actually  earns. 

To  aggregate  good,  better,  best,  bad, 
worse,  worst,  and  exact  for  these  the  same 
grade  of  compensation,  will,  sooner  or  later, 
reduce  the  aggregate  quality  of  the  work 
done. 

To  put  skilled  craftsmen  at  rude  work  is 
to  depreciate  the  value  of  skill,  and  so 
depress  its  wages.  What  if  a  surgeon  with 
college  training,  a  fortune  spent  in  gaming 
knowledge,  a  lifetime  spent  in  acquiring  the 
ease  of  experience,  should  use  all  this  but  to 
soothe  paltry  bruises,  and  heal  insignificant 
wounds  ? 

Through  these  associations,  the  aggrieved 
will  fight  Tyranny  —  Capital.  A  Tyrant  — 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  55 

the  Employer ;  will  assert  the  rights  of  the 
individual  man. 

How? 

All  despotism  is  bad ;  but  the  worst  is  that 
that  works  with  the  machinery  of  freedom. 

Class  aggrandizement  takes  the  place  that 
ought  to  be  held  by  reason,  justice,  and 
common-sense.  Ordered  to  quit,  the  men 
leave.  Told  to  put  down  their  tools,  —  and 
their  bread  with  these,  —  they  obey  without 
question,  without  expostulation.  They  yield 
the  right  to  make  contracts,  to  settle  hours, 
to  settle  work,  to  settle  pay,  to  settle  the 
place  of  their  labor. 

In  a  word,  they  sell  their  liberty  to  main- 
tain their  rights,  and  make  of  themselves 
slaves,  that  they  may  be  free. 

Moncure  Conway  somewhere  tells  a  story 
of  an  innkeeper  who,  disturbed  in  his  slum- 
bers by  the  caterwaulings  of  some  night 
prowler,  found  the  poker,  but,  failing  to 
strike  the  light,  succeeded  in  breaking  the 
hall  clock  and  the  hall  lamp,  then  falling 
broke  out  two  front  teeth,  broke  his  right 


56  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

arm,  and  sprained  his  ankle ;  in  short,  hit 
and  hurt  nearly  every  thing  except  the  cat. 
A  story  with  a  moral,  —  a  moral  to  be 
recommended  to  the  careful  study  of  those 
who  recommend  strikes. 

What  is  a  strike  ? 

A  war.  And  who  needs  to  be  told  that 
fighting  is  folly,  and  costs  more  than  it  comes 
to.  The  men  cease  to  be  productive  labor- 
ers. The  raw  materials  lie  idle.  The 
machinery  is  at  rest  and  rusting.  The  mas- 
ter loses  profits  to  spend,  and  so  put  money 
into  circulation,  and  interest  with  which  to 
start  fresh  and  larger  enterprises.  The 
railways  and  steamers  lose  in  transportation; 
and  their  employees  for  want  of  work  are 
discharged  outright,  or  suffer  in  lowered 
wages.  The  men  themselves  lose  the  prod- 
uct of  past  labor  by  exhausting  their  sav- 
ings; lose  what  would  be  the  product  of 
present  labor ;  mortgage,  often  a  year  deep, 
the  labor  of  the  future.  The  small  trades- 
men lose  custom,  and  in  many  a  case  are 
ruined  by  bad  debts.  The  country  loses  in 
commerce  and  prospective  contracts. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  57 

In  addition,  on  the  one  hand,  is  resent- 
ment fed  by  continued  losses ;  on  the  other, 
intolerable  bitterness  engendered  through 
accumulated  miseries. 

There  must  be  a  more  excellent  way  than 
this. 


58  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


vm. 

LEGISLATION?     So  say  some.    But  what? 

There  is  no  need  to  talk  of  certain  wild 
doctrines  that  are  enunciated  by  a  distinct 
foreign  element  in  our  midst,  —  doctrines 
that  are  incompatible  with  the  existence  of 
all  law,  of  all  order,  of  all  property,  of  all 
civilization,  of  all  that  makes  us  to  differ 
from  Mohawks  and  Hottentots, —  the  stock 
in  trade  of  a  class  of  men  who  are  incapa- 
ble or  unwilling  to  comprehend  the  spirit 
of  our  institutions  and  our  life ;  malcon- 
tents professional,  to  whom  law  means  tyr- 
anny, and  order  a  despot  to  be  guillotined. 
No  body  of  American  men,  employers  or 
employed,  are  to  be  found  training  with 
these. 

The  American  method  is  set  forth  by  one 
of  the  last  great  national  political  conven- 


A  PAYING   INVESTMENT.  59 

tions,  cited  here,  not  as  a  single  instance, 
but  as  type  of  a  class,  —  a  class  to  be  num- 
bered by  the  number  of  political  conven- 
tions. How  does  this  plan  read  ? 

It  asserts  that  the  working-man  is  to 
be  benefited  "by  so  shaping  legislation  as 
to  secure  full  protection,  and  an  ample  field, 
for  capital  and  labor;  to  create  for  capital 
the  largest  opportunities,  and  a  just  share  of 
mutual  profits  for  these  two  servants  of  civil- 
ization." Side  by  side  with  this  plank  lies 
another  declaring  that  this  same  party  is 
"opposed  to  land-grants,  and  in  favor  of 
holding  the  public  lands  for  actual  settlers." 

To  the  first  of  these,  what  shall  be  said  ? 
That  those  who  worded  it  did  not  them- 
selves know  what  they  meant,  and  did  riot 
propose  that  any  one  else  should  be  able  to 
tell  them. 

To  the  second  ?  When  John  Van  Buren 
made  his  somersault  into  the  Free-Soil 
party,  Mike  Walsh  asked  him,  "Do  you 
think  anybody  will  believe  that  you  are  hon- 
est in  this  profession?"  To  which  John 


60  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

imperturbably  answered,  "  There  are  more 
fools  in  the  State  of  New  York  than  you 
suppose." 

The  common-sense  of  the  country  should 
rise  up,  and  condemn  this  tampering  with 
serious  things,  this  "  darkening  of  counsel  by 
words  without  knowledge."  At  present  the 
actors  go  their  own  pace,  and  play  their 
antics  unmolested.  They  make  promise  of 
gifts  from  which  not  the  receivers,  but  the 
bestowers,  are  to  derive  benefit.  They  have 
cared  enough  for  the  toiler  to  sacrifice  to 
him,  not  themselves,  but  other  people's  in- 
terests, and  even  his  own. 

They  do  not  touch  the  conditions  of  the 
factory  operatives,  of  the  agricultural  delv- 
ers,  of  the  mass  of  unskilled  laborers.  They 
exasperate  great  bodies  of  people  by  assert- 
ing vaguely  that  the  law  ought  to  give  them 
a  something  that  is  to  be  a  panacea  for  all 
their  woes.  This  blessed  something,  not  be- 
stowed, grants  to  each  member  of  this  body 
warrant  to  envy  and  hate  and  destroy.  Soci- 
ety should  demand  of  these  "  vain  babblers  " 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  61 

that  they  sharply  define  what  this  something 
is;  that  it  may  be  intelligently  met,  and 
accepted  or  ended. 

"When  they  do  interfere  by  direct  legisla- 
tion, it  is  in  behalf  of  those  who  are  abun- 
dantly able  to  care  for  themselves,  —  the 
skilled  mechanics ;  men  whose  incomes  aver- 
age above  those  of  clerks,  salesmen,  artists, 
small  employers,  and  professionals ;  men  who 
have  the  opportunity,  if  they  have  the 
brains  and  the  will,  to  clamber  "  up  higher," 
where  there  is  always  plenty  of  elbow-room, 
and  where  they  can  find  others  who,  in 
almost  every  case,  have  "risen  from  the 
ranks." 

The  curse  of  the  age  for  these  men,  as  for 
some  others,  is  over-legislation ;  a  shifting 
of  personal  effort  and  personal  responsibility 
upon  some  vast  shadowy  shoulders  known 
as  the  "  government." 

A  man  will  not  listen  to  truth  told  him 
by  an  enemy ;  and  he  very  rarely  gets  it  from 
the  mouth  of  a  friend.  Nevertheless  let 
this  truth  stand:  the  State  owes  to  the 


62  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

skilled  mechanic  what  it  owes  to  all  its 
children,  —  the  very  best  means  of  educa- 
tion to  serve  as  the  basis  of  any  after-life. 

Beyond  this,  it  ought  to  see,  for  its  own 
prosperity,  that  the  opportunities  are  pro- 
vided, through  which  the  finest  skill  can  be 
reached  by  its  producing  classes;  and  that 
no  impediment  is  selfishly  placed  in  the  way 
of  the  weak  by  the  strong,  to  prevent  acqui- 
sition of  this  skill,  whereby  the  whole  State 
suffers  through  the  non-production  or  the 
ill  production  of  any  of  its  members. 

The  politicians,  by  the  countenance  they 
give  to  the  narrow  and  prescriptive  policy  of 
the  journeymen  mechanics ;  the  State,  by  its 
entire  indifference  to  the  establishment  of 
schools  for  special  and  technical  training,  — 
are  aggravating  a  class  trouble  that  is  rap- 
idly becoming  a  national  calamity. 

The  essential  lack  of  American  workmen 
is  stick-at-iveness.  They  do  not  wish  to  sub- 
mit to  the  primary  school  of  patience,  the 
grammar  school  of  apprenticeship,  the  high 
school  of  polytechnic  study.  They  will 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  63 

have  some  royal  road  to  knowledge.  They 
will  not  acquire  the  ability  that  is  only  to 
be  gathered  by  line  upon  line,  precept  upon 
precept,  here  a  little,  and  there  a  little,  to 
the  full  rounding-out  of  perfection. 

A  steadily  narrowing  limit  of  apprentices, 
a  shortened  time  of  apprenticeship,  an 
entire  lack  of  training-schools  and  polytech- 
nic colleges,  —  that  is  the  state  of  the  case 
in  America. 

If  we  belonged  to  ourselves  alone,  ourselves 
to  compete  only  with  ourselves,  this  policy 
would  be  harmful  and  foolish.  As  it  is,  it  is 
suicidal ;  for  America,  even  though  we  may 
think  otherwise,  is  not  the  whole,  but  only  a 
part,  of  the  world. 

"We  are  great  consumers:  we  are  critical 
buyers.  We  need,  then,  much  skill  and 
thorough  skill.  We  will  have  the  best  the 
market  affords.  These  trained  mechanics 
themselves  desire  A  1  when  they  come  as 
buyers ;  and  American  workmen  who  will 
not  perfect  themselves,  nor  allow  others  to 
be  perfected  here,  and  American  statesmen 


64  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

who  are  ignoring  technical  and  polytechnic 
schools  as  though  they  were  of  absolutely 
no  moment,  are  forcing  us  more  and  more  to 
a  foreign  market. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


IX. 

EUROPE  is  catering  to  this  desire.  One 
hundred  years  ago,  it  was  without  training- 
schools  and  elementary  scientific  instruction 
for  the  working  population :  now  these  are 
found  in  every  country  on  the  continent, 
aided  by  enormous  government  subsidies, 
and  help  of  liberal  and  intelligent  kind. 

In  Austria  proper,  there  are  forty-five 
schools  for  scientific  instruction,  with  seven 
polytechnic  schools. 

Baden  has  fifty  special  technical  schools ; 
among  these,  forty-one  schools  of  "  arts  and 
trades." 

Bavaria  has  a  large  number  of  industrial 
schools,  embracing  besides  music,  painting, 
sculpture,  and  other  belongings  to  the  fine 
arts,  four  agricultural  academies,  with  twen- 
ty-nine sections  for  similar  instruction  in 

5 


66  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

that  number  of  superior  trade-schools.  These 
schools  have,  for  their  chief  design,  "  to  carry 
the  sciences  into  industry,  and  to  put  indus- 
trial pursuits  upon  a  footing  corresponding 
to  the  progress  of  technical  art,  and  the 
competition  of  foreign  industry." 

Wurtemburg,  with  only  1,700,000  inhabit- 
ants, has  one  technical  university,  ten  tech- 
nical schools  of  the  next  grade  with  5,140 
pupils,  eleven  building  and  trade  schools, 
giving  a  thorough  theoretical  and  practical 
training  in  these  occupations. 

Prussia  has  361  schools  of  agriculture, 
general  and  special.  Besides  schools  for 
weaving  and  textile  manufactures,  there  are 
265  industrial  schools,  whose  studies  and 
hours  are  directly  arranged  for  the  use  of 
mechanics. 

Not  only  the  best  artisans,  but  the  finest 
designers  in  the  world,  are  to  be  found  in 
Switzerland.  Switzerland  spends  seven  times 
as  much  on  education  as  on  pauperism  and 
crime.  She  has  a  complete  system  of  tech- 
nical and  special  industrial  schools ;  and  the 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  67 

concededly  best  polytechnic  institute  in  exist- 
ence, that  of  Zurich.  There  are  seven  courses 
of  study,  —  architecture  and  construction, 
civil  engineering,  mechanics  and  machinery, 
chemistry  inorganic  and  applied,  industrial 
agriculture,  forestry  and  rural  economy, 
moral  and  political  economy,  and  the  fine  arts. 

Napoleon  knew  well  what  he  was  doing  for 
the  future  of  the  mechanical  arts  of  his 
country,  when  he  ordered  drawing  taught  in 
all  of  the  schools  of  France.  And,  climbing 
up  from  these,  the  student  can  enter  any  one 
of  a  large  number  of  schools  of  agriculture, 
of  drawing,  of  arts  and  trades,  of  hydrog- 
raphy, of  technical  sciences,  of  design  for 
textile  arts,  laces,  wall-paper,  furniture,  &c., 
of  horticulture,  silk-culture,  mining,  practical 
chemistry,  and  dyeing. 

In  the  London  exhibition  of  1851,  England 
stood  supreme  in  nine-tenths  of  the  one  hun- 
dred departments.  England,  in  the  Paris 
exposition  of  1867,  stood  defeated  in  nine- 
tenths  of  the  one  hundred  departments. 
Through  those  sixteen  years,  workmen  — 


68  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

graduates  of  these  schools  —  had  entered  the 
shops  of  Europe,  and  beaten  her  on  her 
chosen  and  long-conceded  ground. 

What  did  she?  Established  schools  of 
this  order  everywhere  ;  established  free 
classes,  art  and  scientific,  for  the  purpose  of 
lifting  the  handicrafts  to  the  dignity  and 
opportunity  of  the  professions. 

Great  Britain  in  1860  had  nine  schools  of 
science  and  art,  with  three  hundred  pupils. 
In  1869,  she  had  five  hundred  such  schools, 
with  fifteen  thousand  pupils. 

In  all  that  tends  to  convert  the  mere 
workman  into  the  artisan,  we  are  a  long 
way  behind  Austria,  France,  and  Switzerland. 
Buncombe  and  self-laudation  will  not  make 
headway  against  the  legitimate  results  of  this  ; 
neither  will  narrow  rules  of  work,  and  special 
prescriptive  legislation.  What  we  desire  we 
will  have.  What  we  want  we  will  secure 
wherever  it  can  be  found.  America  will  have 
the  results  of  skill,  whether  skill  is  permitted 
to  perfect  itself  here,  or  not. 

Here  is  a  single  straw  from  a  rick-full: 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  69 

Said  a  leading  jeweller  to  me  some  time  ago, 
"To-day  there  came  into  this  port  ninety- 
seven  workers  in  fine  gold  and  gems,  demand- 
ing great  prices,  receiving  great  prices ;  while 
ninety-seven  American  boys,  sons  of  Ameri- 
can mechanics,  who  might  be  in  their  places, 
are  common  laborers  or  vagabonds,  —  the 
effect  of  apprenticeship  tyranny." 

Mark  the  swarm  of  men  who  answer  a 
solitary  advertisement  for  the  place  of  a 
clerk ;  while  our  railroads,  our  factories,  our 
trades,  are  crying  for  educated  superintend- 
ents, foremen,  engineers,  designers,  skilful 
managers,  and  cunning  workmen. 

The  contests  of  the  future,  when  civilized 
nations  shall  grapple  for  supremacy,  even 
existence,  will  be  industrial  contests. 

"  We  are  not  afraid !  one  American  is 
equal  to  two  Europeans  any  day."  Granted 
the  American,  with  his  broader  individual 
development,  is  better  stuff  to  train :  the  fact 
still  stands  that  he  must  have  the  training. 
There  must  be  fraternity  in  place  of  enmity ; 
open  hands,  open  doors,  open  schools  of 


70  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

•apprenticeship,  and  a  liberal  backing  of 
technical  and  training  schools,  if  this  country 
and  its  producers  are  to  hold  their  own  in  its 
own  markets,  to  say  nought  of  the  markets 
of  the  world. 

Untrammelled  hands,  untrammelled  feet,  a 
fair  field,  and  no  favor  —  that  is  what  the 
skilled  mechanic  needs  for  himself;  and  he 
ought  to  be  ashamed  to  ask  more  than  this 
of  the  government.  Let  politicians  stop  gam- 
bling with  his  discontent.  Let  this  discon- 
tent, with  facilities  of  enlightenment,  moil  its 
way  to  plans,  the  plans  to  wholesome  action ; 
and  it  will  be  the  better  for  this  man  and  the 
world. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  71 


X. 

THE  trained  mechanic,  like  the  rest  of 
capable  human  beings,  must  work  out  his 
own  salvation.  Unless  his  grip  is  strong  to 
take,  it  will  be  weak  to  hold. 

But  how  ?  Says  Abernethy,  "  If  a  man 
has  a  clear  idea  of  what  he  desires  to  do,  he 
will  seldom  fail  in  selecting  the  proper  means 
of  accomplishing  it." 

The  way,  it  seems  to  me,  for  the  mechanic 
to  secure  all  he  earns,  is  the  present  way  of 
the  world.  The  whole  march  of  civilization 
is  towards  co-operation.  Each  step  is  an  edu- 
cator. The  power  of  combination  belongs 
to  enlightenment.  By  the  natural  growth 
of  civilization,  power  passes  from  individuals 
to  masses.  When  it  is  really  there,  it  makes 
itself  felt.  When  the  knowledge  that  is 
power  —  the  knowledge  of  self,  of  skill  in 


72  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

work,  of  recognition  of  personal  limitations, 
and  of  the  powers  of  others,  of  the  relative 
value  of  different  gifts — is  well  spread 
through  the  industrial  classes,  then  will  be 
seen  the  triumph  of  co-operative  effort. 

I  am  as  unwilling  to  speak  out  all  that  I 
think  practicable  in  this  matter,  as  George 
Stephenson  was  about  railways,  when  he  cal- 
culated the  average  speed  of  a  train  at  ten 
miles  an  hour ;  because,  if  he  had  estimated 
it  higher,  the  practical  men  would  have 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  him,  as  that  most  unsafe 
man,  —  in  their  estimation,  —  an  enthusiast 
and  a  visionary.  I  do  not  believe  that  co- 
operation will  give  every  man  a  brown-stone 
house,  and  ten  thousand  a  year ;  but  it  will 
give  him  what  he  is  actually  worth,  and  that 
is  all  he  has  the  right  to  demand.  It  will 
elevate  his  work  in  his  own  estimation,  by 
making  him  its  master,  and  not  its  slave. 

It  will  put  an  end  to  the  absurdity  that 
the  "head  "  of  the  establishment  is  actually 
worth  no  more  than  the  hands,  and  ought  to 
receive  no  more  than  they  of  the  profits  of 
their  joint  labor. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  73 

A  man  with  his  hands  cut  off,  and  a 
trained  head  on  top  of  his  body,  can  plan, 
order,  execute ;  but  if  his  head  be  cut  off? — 
There  is  nothing  a  set  of  intelligent  workers 
would  so  speedily  discover,  working  for 
themselves,  as  the  need  of  a  leader,  and  the 
full  value  of  one  who  is  a  leader  indeed. 

What  are  the  two  pillars  that  base  the 
power  of  a  large  employer  in  America  ? 

Money  and  brains :  pre-eminently  the  last ; 
a  special  aptitude  for  a  special  work. 

In  most  lands,  even  to-day,  the  man  of 
means  is  the  man  of  privilege.  Elsewhere, 
as  a  rule,  capital  represents  centuries  of  past 
labor  or  spoliation.  Here  in  nine-tenths  of 
the  cases,  and  in  eight-tenths  of  the  remain- 
ing tenth,  it  means  present  work  of  body 
and  brain.  Here  a  man  is  poor,  his  son  is 
rich,  his  grandson  is  poor.  Make,  spend, 
break !  The  circle  is  complete.  The  cap- 
italist, in  America,  is  simply  the  sagacious, 
sleepless,  aggressive  laborer.  Four-fifths  of 
the  manufacturing  kings  of  New  England 
began  as  day-subjects. 


74  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

"  Consummate  men  of  business,"  says  Ar- 
thur Helps,  "are  as  rare  almost  as  great 
poets."  Such  an  one  has  promptitude  of 
action  in  emergencies,  capacity  of  simplify- 
ing work,  and  organizing  the  labors  of  mul- 
titudes ;  great  tact,  and  knowledge  of 
human  nature;  scientific  knowledge,  practi- 
cal knowledge,  presence  of  mind,  courage, 
zeal,  and  the  habit  of  command.  These  are 
they  who  succeed,  —  men  who,  in  addition, 
are  of  iron  will ;  who  recognize,  in  a  diffi- 
culty, only  a  thing  to  be  overcome;  who 
lick  honey  from  thorns,  and  pay  for  it; 
men  who  are  content  to  yield  so  great  a 
price  as  their  own  servitude  for  their  domin- 
tion  over  others. 

Legislation  can  not  make  all  men  like  unto 
these,  any  more  than  it  can  make  all  men 
equally  brave,  or  strong,  or  wise,  or  learned, 
or  beautiful,  or  beloved,  or  of  one  height. 
Neither  can  co-operation ;  but  co-operation 
can  put  all  the  feet  on  a  common  level. 
After  that,  the  heads  must  stand  as  they 
grow  ;  one  four  feet  high,  one  six. 


A  PAYING  IITVESTMENT.  75 

Men  with  thinking  brains  in  their  heads, 
though  they  stand  but  four  feet,  with  skilled 
hands  working  for  themselves,  would  quickly 
see  the  value  of  such  a  captain  as  this,  when 
they  could  pay  him,  and  not  be  paid  by  him. 

A  master-mind  in  business  is  to  be  hired 
as  a  president,  a  general,  a  naval  commander, 
is  to  be  hired.  He  is  hired  now.  Bank 
presidents,  railway  officers,  the  "  heads " 
of  all  joint-stock  enterprises,  are  secured 
through  the  money  in  the  hands  of  others. 
The  executive  ability  that  is  needed  to 
carry  on  a  shop,  a  factory,  a  foundery,  a 
building  enterprise,  is  as  available.  In  place 
of  five  rich  men,  fifty  poor ;  in  place  of 
fifty  rich,  five  hundred  poor  men,  can 
command  such  services. 

And  the  more  skill,  the  more  ability,  the 
more  training,  the  more  general  and  special 
education,  there  is  in  this  body  of  workmen, 
the  more  success  for  them,  and  the  greater 
gain  for  the  general  weal. 

The  governments  of  Europe  were  opposed 
to  any  education  of  the  masses,  till  they  dis- 


76  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

covered  in  schools  an  unexpected  ally  in  the 
promotion  of  national  industry,  and  the  in- 
crease of  national  wealth  and  power.  That 
discovery  once  made,  even  the  least  enter- 
prising states  have  been  driven,  in  self-de- 
fence, to  establish  them.  Desire  of  success, 
and  supremacy  in  the  arts,  both  of  peace  and 
war,  is  drawing  Europe  to  the  hasty  accept- 
ance and  development  of  the  policy  of  uni- 
versal education.  Even  the  Turkish  empire 
has  planted  in  its  midst  a  system  of  free 
schools. 

As  we  led  a  century  ago,  let  us  lead  now. 
Because  our  fathers  were  in  advance  of  their 
time,  shall  that  excuse  us  for  lagging  behind 
ours? 

The  country  that  exports  expensive  manu- 
factures, and  imports  its  chief  necessities, 
must  perpetually  be  accumulating  wealth, 
and  will  end  by  getting  the  command  both 
of  the  labor  and  the  money  market ;  and 
the  supremacy  of  any  people  in  the  arts  is 
to  be  gamed  and  maintained,  hereafter,  only 
by  the  thorough  education  of  its  laboring 
classes. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  77 

Let  us  have  more  schools,  better  attend- 
ance, technical  study  as  a  sort  of  high  school 
outgrowth  of  the  common  school,  that,  as 
the  one  fits  the  boy  for  the  performance  of 
his  general  duties  as  a  citizen,  so  the  other 
may  prepare  him  for  the  special  duties  of  his 
trade  or  art.  Let  us  have  more  knowledge, 
more  light,  for  the  good  of  the  individual 
and  the  good  of  the  whole. 


78  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


XI. 

MEANWHILE,  as  those  of  us  who  are  able 
to  hold  our  own  in  the  world,  make  our  way 
with  such  success  as  may  attend  us,  having 
brains  to  comprehend,  hearts  to  feel,  con- 
sciences to  enlighten,  hands  to  execute,  let 
us,  for  our  own  safety,  see  that  multitudes 
of  those  who  are  incapable  of  holding  their 
own  —  multitudes  of  "the  poor  whose  de- 
struction is  their  poverty"  —  have  that  atten- 
tion and  help,  that  will  save  them  from  utter 
debasement,  and  ourselves  from  heavy  penal- 
ties. 

Horrible  matters  to  investigate,  these, — 
of  ignorance,  vice,  and  crime;  so  horrible 
that  society  tries  to  ignore  them,  as  though 
ignoring  destroyed ;  so  horrible  that  refined 
human  nature  would  fain  deny  the  bond  of 
a  common  humanity  with  the  ignorant,  the 
vicious,  and  the  criminal. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  79 

Still  it  is  common. 

There  is  a  story  somewhere  told  of  a  cer- 
tain Welsh  minister,  who,  coming  over  the 
hills  to  his  church  one  misty  morning,  saw, 
off  through  the  fog,  a  something  he  thought 
a  monster.  Approaching  it,  "  I  discovered," 
said  he,  "  that  it  was  a  man.  Reaching  his 
side,  I  found  him  to  be  my  brother." 

So  we  of  the  more  favored  of  fortune, 
looking  out  through  the  mists  of  indifference 
or  the  mists  of  selfishness,  see  shapes  that 
are  no  more  clearly  defined  than  shadowy 
monsters,  —  the  outcast  and  perishing 
classes;  creatures  that  wear  the  outward 
garb  of  men  and  women,  but  are,  in  our 
estimation,  beings  as  apart  from  us  as  though 
they  were  of  another  creation. 

And  yet,  however  we  regard  them,  we  are 
—  willing  or  reluctant,  with  our  consent  or 
against  our  consent  —  one  and  all  members 
of  a  family  that  embraces  the  whole  human 
kind. 

Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ? 

"  No,"  and  "  Yes,"  says  society. 


80  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

No,  when  he  is  to  be  instructed,  helped, 
saved. 

Yes,  when  he  is  to  be  judged,  sentenced, 
punished. 

Before  society  condemns,  it  should  pass 
through  a  self  -  examination.  The  judge 
should  be  judged. 

The  criminal  is  an  enemy  to  human  so- 
ciety, says  society;  a  moral  wild  beast,  to 
be  hunted,  since  he  is  dangerous  at  liberty ; 
to  be  caged,  when  .captured,  with  other  wild 
beasts  of  his  own  species. 

A  moral  wild  beast.  Very  well.  Was  he 
born  so?  and,  in  that  case,  are  we  in  any 
wise  responsible  for  such  monstrous  birth? 
Or  has  he  gone  through  some  process  of  a 
hideous  transformation  to  which  we  have 
actively  or  passively  consented  ? 

We  have  permitted  the  construction  of 
courts  and  alleys,  the  building  of  houses  for 
human  habitation,  wherein  no  plant  could 
grow,  nor  flower  could  blossom,  and  in 
which  life  of  all  sorts  shoots  sickly  and 
stunted,  and  wilts  ere  it  can  bloom. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  81 

Places  so  close  and  so  foul,  that  in  them 
no  man  of  sensibility  would  stable  his  horse, 
or  kennel  his  favorite  dog. 

Abodes  in  which  the  ordinary  decencies 
of  life  are  of  necessity  violated;  since  men 
and  women,  young  and  old,  the  married  and 
the  single,  huddle  together,  by  day  and  by 
night,  in  a  contact  and  an  exposure  that 
must  finally  annihilate  even  the  rudest  sense 
of  propriety  and  of  shame. 

Dens  reeking  with  fever  and  disease. 
Where  disease  is,  —  disease  of  blood,  and 
bone,  and  tissue, — there  is  an  open  door 
to  vice  and  crime.  Starved  brain,  famished 
nerves,  palsied  will,  an  entire  lowered  physi- 
cal tone,  must  depress,  if  not  destroy,  all 
moral  tone. 

People  here  withering  in  ignorance;  no 
law  compelling  the  parents  to  allow  the 
child  instruction ;  no  law  seeking  the  home- 
less and  truant  child,  and  leading  it  to  the 
schoolroom  door. 

Given  over  to  the  tutelage  of  idleness  and 
vagabondage,  till  they  graduate  in  outlawry. 


82  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

More  than  two-thirds  of  the  denizens  of 
almshouses  and  refuges  —  a  crop  gathered 
from  this  soil  —  are  but  one  remove,  if  even 
that,  from  absolute  illiteracy. 

Out  of  the  seventeen  thousand  inhabitants 
of  State-prisons,  eighty  per  cent  have  never 
learned  a  trade,  nor  any  means  of  honorable 
support. 

About  these  people,  diseased  in  body  and 
mind,  weak  in  will,  craving  in  appetite, 
society  consents  to  the  sale  of  that  that 
grants  them  temporary  exaltation,  or  tempo- 
rary forgetfulness,  at  the  expense  of  what 
means,  or  health,  or  virtue,  circumstances 
have  spared. 

To  put  a  stimulant  in  the  way  of  a  morbid 
appetite,  a  diseased  stomach,  an  under-fed 
body,  and  expect  no  use  to  be  made  of  it,  is 
as  unreasonable  as  to  put  water  before  the 
perishing,  food  before  the  starving,  and  ex- 
pect them  not  to  drink  thirstily,  nor  to  feed 
ravenously. 

Here,  then,  are  conditions  of  misery, 
disease,  and  degradation,  synonymous  with 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  83 

conditions  of  crime,  for  which  society  is 
responsible,  and  the  penalty  of  which  society 
has  to  pay. 

There  are  other  multitudes  one,  two, 
half  a  dozen  steps,  removed  from  these, — 
those  who  do  but  live  to  toil,  and  toil 
unceasingly  to  live;  unhappy,  overtasked, 
exasperated ;  who,  seeking  to  escape  for  a 
little  while  from  the  hard  needs  or  heavy 
pressure  of  their  lives,  stumble  through  the 
saloon-doors  that  society  opens  wide  to  them, 
into  the  jail -doors  that  society  with  haste 
and  fear  shuts  fast. 

There  are  yet  others  who  are  exposed 
naked  on  a  highway  where  he  who  walks 
safely  needs  armor  of  proof ;  brothels,  rum- 
shops,  gambling  -  hells,  standing  on  either 
side,  shooting  their  poisoned  arrows  as  he 
passes  by.  Boys  who  ought  to  be  at  school, 
or  employed ;  young  men,  —  young  in  years, 
in  knowledge,  in  wisdom ;  idlers  though 
not  vagabonds,  loiterers  but  not  vagrants ; 
youths  out  for  a  "  good  time,"  for  a  "  little 
holiday,"  for  "a  bit  of  a  spree,"  —  these 


84  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

"  shake  a  loose  foot"  once  too  often,  or  once 
too  far,  and  find  it  caught  in  chains.  Per- 
haps they  are  only  on-lookers,  the  compan- 
ions of  those  who  are  in  mischief:  they 
become  companions  in  misery. 

The  enormous  majority  of  those  who  are 
"  taken  up,"  and  "  sent  down "  for  a  first 
offence,  still  possess  an  element  of  self- 
respect,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  and  at 
least  a  rude  or  crude  sense  of  honor. 

What  does  society  for  these?  Having 
neglected,  or  noticed  only  to  tempt  them, 
society  at  once  takes  them  actively  in  hand, 
and  begins  to  educate  them  in  crime  and 
abomination;  in  the  end  punishing  them, 
while  itself  is  punished,  for  what  it  has 
compelled  them  to  acquire. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  85 


xn. 

THERE  are  over  two  thousand  county-jails 
in  the  country.  What  are  they  ? 

From  the  leading  one  in  the  leading  city 
of  the  land,  to  the  smallest  one  in  the  small- 
est district,  with  a  few  honorable  exceptions, 
they  are  alike,  —  epitomes  of  nastiness,  dis- 
comfort, and  demoralization. 

The  cells  furnished  with  a  straw-bed 
and  a  straw-bolster;  rarely  more  than  one 
blanket,  —  this  washed  sometimes  once  a 
week,  in  the  majority  of  cases  not  once  a 
year ;  without  towels,  without  soap,  without 
water ;  swarming  with  vermin,  and  poisoned 
by  the  horrible  exhalations  of  the  night-tubs; 
insufficient  food  furnished,  badly  cooked,  and 
vulgarly  served;  without  ventilation,  per- 
haps a  hole  six  inches  square,  cut  into  the 
wall,  and  leading  nowhere;  no  sunshine, 


86  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

no  fresh  air,  close,  damp,  foul,  offensive  ; 
no  books,  no  light  in  the  evening  by  which 
to  read  them ;  no  services,  no  chaplain ; 
often  with  not  a  single  kindly-disposed  vis- 
itor ;  often  so  insecure  as  to  render  neces- 
sary happles  or  chains. 

One  long  hall  outside  the  horrible  cells, 
used  for  all  purposes ;  no  work,  no  super- 
vision, no  employment  for  hands  or  heads, 
save  the  drinking  of  whiskey,  the  playing 
of  cards,  the  acquiring  of  added  skill  in  vice 
or  crime. 

Frightful  places  for  the  condemned,  if  the 
condemned  alone  were  consigned  to  them. 

But  into  these  places  are  promiscuously 
thrust,  and  promiscuously  detained,  — 

The  innocent  accused. 

The  guilty  accused. 

Those  awaiting  trial. 

Those  undergoing  trial. 

Those  serving  sentences  of  punishment. 

Those  who  cannot  furnish  bail ;  the  ac- 
cused of  crime,  and  the  innocent  witness  of 
crime,  alike. 


A  PAYING  ESTVESTMENT.  87 

Those  held  for  debt. 

For  non-payment  of  fines. 

For  vagrancy;  "having  no  visible  means 
of  support." 

For  insanity. 

For  helplessness,  —  those  whose  sole  of- 
fence is  blindness  or  infancy ;  babies  up  to 
four  and  five  years  of  age,  "  committed 
by  the  magistrate,  because  they  need  their 
mother's  care." 

Men  and  women;  the  accused  and  the 
convicted ;  the  innocent  child  and  the  hard- 
ened offender ;  the  boy  or  girl  charged  only 
with  a  misdemeanor,  and  the  man  or  woman 
capable  of  any  enormity  and  every  crime ; 
the  helpless  and  the  infamous,  the  weak  and 
the  vicious,  —  all  flung  together. 

The  blind  and  the  insane  should  be  in 
asylums.  The  vagrants  should  be  put  to 
work,  where  they  can  feed  themselves ;  and 
not,  as  now,  prey  upon  society.  The  impo- 
sition of  fines  should  be  abolished.  If  the 
man  can  pay  his  fine  easily,  it  is  no  punish- 
ment :  if  he  is  without  means,  it  resolves 
itself  into  imprisonment  illegally  enforced. 


88  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

The  witness  should  have  his  deposition 
taken,  duly  attested  by  oath  or  affirmation, 
and  be  allowed  to  go.  Or  if  he  is  detained, 
being  without  friends  or  money,  and  so 
unable  to  furnish  bonds  to  appear  at  trial, 
society,  that  detains  him  for  its  security,  has 
no  right  to  immolate  him.  It  should  see 
him  lodged  in  comfort  and  honor,  and  should 
pay  a  full  equivalent  for  his  time  and  trouble. 
The  witness  is  held  on  the  same  principle 
that  justifies  the  taking  of  private  property 
for  public  benefit;  and  this  principle  in- 
volves, in  either  case,  the  same  right  of 
indemnity. 

Now  the  accused,  even  he  who  is  in  the 
end  proven  guilty,  if  able  to  furnish  security, 
can  go  his  way  in  comfort  and  prosperity 
through  the  world;  while  the  unfortunate 
witness  of  his  crime — perhaps  the  hapless 
victim  as  well  —  languishes  and  deteriorates 
in  the  pestiferous  air  of  the  prison. 

The  mate  of  a  vessel  coming  into  the  port 
of  New  York,  who  was  accused  of  having 
murdered  one  of  his  sailors,  and  of  brutally 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  89 

using  and  maiming  others,  was  admitted  to 
bail,  and  sailed  away  to  fresh  enterprises. 
The  English  sailors  who  were  his  victims, 
and  the  witnesses  against  him,  strangers  in  a 
strange  land,  unable  to  give  security,  were 
for  two  whole  years  confined  in  the  noisome 
cells  of  Ludlow-street  Jail,  to  bear  testimony 
in  a  case  that  never  came  to  trial. 

A  dissertation  from  their  lips  upon  the 
rights  of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness, granted  in  this  land  to  the  innocent 
and  the  unfortunate,  might  be  listened  to, 
and  acted  upon,  with  profit. 

To  charge,  and  to  prove,  are  two  matters. 
The  accused  and  the  convicted  should  be 
recognized  as  two  persons.  The  accused, 
even  if  guilty,  has  the  right  to  be  accounted 
innocent  till  condemned. 

There  should  be  a  hall  of  justice,  into 
which  every  arrested  person  should  be 
brought  at  once,  and,  if  attainable,  saved 
imprisonment.  The  air  of  the  jail  is  a 
blight  from  which  it  would  be  well  to  pre- 
serve as  many  as  possible. 


90  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

The  State  should  provide  a  defender,  as 
well  as  a  prosecutor,  in  all  cases  of  minors, 
of  the  friendless,  of  the  hopelessly  poor. 
The  innocent,  able  without  difficulty  to 
prove  innocence,  should  be  discharged  at 
once.  Thousands  of  cases  are  now  dismissed 
after  months  of  imprisonment,  on  charges 
never  substantiated,  or  never  even  called  for 
trial,  —  mere  malice,  or  insignificant  injury, 
lying  at  the  bottom  of  them. 

The  accused,  being  committed,  should  be 
shut  away  entirely  from  the  condemned,  and 
from  one  another.  They  should  not  be 
marked  as  jail-birds.  If  innocent,  they 
should  not  be  exposed  to  contamination.  If 
guilty,  they  should  not  have  the  opportunity 
of  depraving  others,  or  of  sinking  one  step 
lower  themselves. 

Above  all,  they  should  be  brought  to  a 
speedy  trial.  The  State  has  no  right  to  pun- 
ish the  merely  suspected.  Now  they  are  often 
kept  waiting  from  one  to  twelve  months  for  a 
prosecution  that  will  discharge  them  inno- 
cent, or  punish  them  with  a  briefer  term  than 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  91 

that  they  have  already  served.  Among  the 
condemned,  misdemeanors  should  not  be  con- 
founded with  crimes,  nor  the  mischievous 
with  the  criminal,  if  they  are  not  to  become 
so.  Now  the  State  full  often  seizes  a  mis- 
chief-maker, and,  by  the  association  it  com- 
pels, graduates  a  malefactor.  Is  it  too  much 
to  say  to  those  who  jeer  at  "  prison  reform," 
that,  at  least,  the  State  has  no  right,  if  it 
does  not  regenerate,  to  demoralize,  and  then 
punish  the  demoralization  itself  has  pro- 
duced? 

The  habitual  drunkards,  if  they  are  to  be 
confined  at  all  for  drunkenness,  should  be 
treated  as  the  insane,  consigned  to  some 
place  where  they  can  serve  a  curative  sen- 
tence. Now,  to  send  down  a  man  or  woman 
from  ten  to  one  hundred  times,  at  great  cost 
of  arrest,  of  trial,  of  commitment,  only  to 
harden  and  degrade  yet  further,  is  neither 
good  sense  nor  good  law,  but  a  mockery  of 
justice. 

To  thrust  a  child  into  such  a  place  as  this, 
is  to  accomplish  the  Devil's  own  service,  and 


92  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

most  artistically.  With,  my  own  eyes  I  have 
seen  a  child  of  six,  in  for  no  crime,  nor  even 
fault,  listening  eagerly  to  the  fluent  talk  of 
one  whose  association  was  destruction ;  have 
seen  boys  down  for  a  first  and  small  offence, 
clustered  about  the  knees,  taking  lessons 
never  to  be  forgotten,  of  robbers,  burglars, 
and  adulterers. 

There  should  be  houses  for  such  as  these, 
that  should  be  neither  jails  nor  prisons. 

Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?     Ask  it  again ! 

In  the  days  of  Lord  Bacon,  the  prisons 
were  in  so  vile  a  state  as  to  send,  by  the 
prisoners,  their  miasma  even  into  the  court- 
room ;  and  many  a  judge,  who  condemned  a 
wretch  to  the  gallows,  was  in  turn  con- 
demned by  him  to  fever  and  the  grave. 
"  Therefore"  says  Lord  Bacon,  "it  were  good 
wisdom,  that,  in  such  cases,  the  jails  were 
well  aired  before  they,  the  accused,  were 
brought  forth." 

Degraded,  or  ignorant,  or  helpless,  tempted 
by  the  law,  by  the  license  the  law  counte- 
nances, demoralized  by  the  law  schools,  thrust 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  93 

into  a  grave,  forgotten,  coming  out  only  to 
prey  upon  us,  bringing  with  them  the  pesti- 
lence of  the  tomb. 

Let  us  consider  it  for  our  own  sake. 

I  read  in  the  papers,  the  other  day,  of  a 
man  who  lived  not  long  since,  in  the  city  of 
London ;  a  man  proud  of  his  wealth,  proud 
of  his  position,  proud  of  his  name,  —  the 
inheritance  of  centuries,  —  so  proud  that  he 
regarded  the  masses  of  his  kind  no  more 
than  he  regarded  the  mud  of  the  streets 
flung  upon  them  by  his  horses'  feet  as  he 
rode  by. 

Well,  this  man  had,  in  his  magnificent 
home,  one  only  daughter,  a  girl  rare  in  grace 
and  perfect  in  beauty ;  the  pride  of  his  eyes, 
and  the  gladness  of  his  heart.  And,  she 
coming  of  age,  her  father  made  a  great  feast, 
and  invited  his  friends  and  neighbors, — 
the  people  he  recognized  as  belonging  to  his 
world,  —  to  rejoice  with  him.  In  the  midst 
of  all  that  light  and  splendor  and  loveliness, 
there  was  nothing  fairer  and  finer  than  she. 
In  the  midst  of  the  elegant  adornings  there 


94  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

worn,  —  shimmer  of  silk,  blaze  of  jewels,  fall 
of  lace,  royal  sweep  of  velvet,  —  there  was 
nothing  so  exquisite  as  the  robe  she  wore ; 
so  dainty  and  marvellous  that  even  the 
trained  and  accustomed  eyes  there  gathered 
looked  at  it  with  wonder  and  with  admira- 
tion. 

The  delicate  garment  that  had  a  wearer 
had  had  a  maker ;  a  girl  as  young  as  she,  who 
might  have  been  as  fair  and  as  strong  as  she, 
had  she  too  had  a  little  bit  of  sunshine,  a 
little  bit  of  fresh  air,  a  little  bit  of  happiness ; 
a.  girl  who  was  one  of  "  the  masses ; "  who, 
morning  by  morning,  journeyed  from  the 
stifling  garret  in  which  she  lived,  to  the 
grand  establishment  in  which  these  artistic 
wonders  were  made,  and  there  toiled,  with 
the  fever  that  was  to  destroy  her  already 
burning  in  her  veins.  So  with  each  punc- 
ture of  the  needle,  with  each  drawing  in 
and  out  of  the  silken  thread,  she  wrought 
fairness  and  beauty:  she  wrought  and  in- 
wrought disease  and  death. 

Thus  it  fell,  that  in  less  than  a  week  from 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  95 

the  time  the  guarded  daughter  stood,  in  all 
her  pride  and  pomp  of  loveliness,  brilliant, 
admired,  secure,  she  was  twisted  in  the  sheet 
on  which  she  had  died,  and  was  carried  out 
to  her  final  rest,  with  no  mourners  having 
the  courage  and  the  grief  combined  to  follow 
her,  save  her  stricken  and  heart-broken 
father. 

Sooner  or  later,  sooner  or  later,  the  bond 
of  humanity  makes  itself  felt.  If  by  the 
hand  grasp  and  fellowship  of  brotherhood, 
well  for  us. 

If  not  — 


96  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


XIII. 

IT  costs  more  to  neglect  our  duties  than 
to  accomplish  them. 

It  costs  more  to  take  care  of  the  idle  poor, 
the  able  paupers,  than  to  see  that  they  are 
trained,  in  some  wise,  to  work,  and  the 
means  of  self-support  put  before  them. 

It  costs  more  to  cure  than  to  prevent,  ten 
times  over;  and  cure  is  rarely  brought  to 
perfection  even  then. 

Crime  and  its  results,  the  original  injury 
it  works,  its  police,  its  magistrates,  its  com- 
mitments, its  trials,  its  courts,  its  sheriffs,  its 
clerks,  its  judges,  its  juries,  its  prisons,  its 
penitentiaries,  its  gallows,  —  cost  more  than 
all  the  other  expenses  of  government  com- 
bined. And  what  does  it  cost  besides 
money  ? 

Does  the  State  —  having  provided  schools 


A  PAYING   INVESTMENT.  97 

for  these  little  venders  of  papers,  of  matches, 
these  hangers-on  about  wharves,  and  build- 
ings in  construction,  these  small  thieves  and 
vagrants,  these  street  Arabs  —  take  them  in 
hand,  and  save  them  for  its  own  sake,  as  well 
as  theirs  ?  Why,  then,  are  they  where  and 
what  they  are  ? 

The  expenditure  for  maintaining  a  pauper 
child  —  and  there  are  tens  of  thousands  in  the 
different  State  and  county  houses — till  he 
can  be  of  some  service  is  not  less  than  five 
hundred  dollars ;  of  which  not  one  cent  is  now 
spent  in  making  him  a  self-supporting  and  self- 
respecting  citizen.  The  school  and  the  indus- 
trial information  he  ought  to  have  bestowed 
upon  him  left  unbestowed,  he  remains  a 
pauper,  —  or  becomes  worse,  —  for  the  sixty 
or  seventy  years  through  which  he  may  curse 
the  world  with  his  presence. 

Of  11,510  convicted  criminals  in  New 
York,  7,232  —  that  is  to  say,  62  per  cent  — 
were  orphans  or  half  orphans.  What  a 
parent  has  the  State  been  to  these  ! 

The  ratio  of  well  educated  in  the  prisons 


98  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

is  about  one  in  seventy-five.  The  prison 
tables  that  give  a  respectable  percentage  are 
fallacious.  Every  man,  not  put  to  the  test, 
will  overstate  the  amount  of  his  education. 
He  "  can  read  and  write  " — reading  and  writ- 
ing that  require  ingenuity  to  comprehend 
and  to  decipher ! 

The  night-schools  whereby  myriads  of 
boys  and  girls  have  been  saved  to  an  honora- 
ble, self-supporting,  and  helpful  manhood 
and  womanhood,  consume  on  an  average  two 
dollars  a  year  for  each  scholar.  The  average 
expenditure  for  every  State -prison  convict, 
aside  from  any  previous  burthen  to  society,  is 
two  hundred  dollars  a  year.  It  takes  two 
dollars  a  year,  and  a  little  attention,  to  save  a 
waif  to  manhood.  It  takes  two  hundred  dol- 
lars a  year  to  support  this  waif  when  he  has 
run  the  streets  in  ignorance  till  he  graduates 
in  crime,  has  lost  manhood  and  identity 
together,  and  has  become  a  thing  behind  a 
cell-door,  and  a  number  on  the  outside  of  it. 

If  the  evil  effects  of  the  neglect  of  a  life 
ended  with  that  life,  they  would  be  sore  and 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  99 

heavy  weights  for  society  to  entail  upon 
itself;  but  they  spread  in  ever  -  widening 
circles  as  the  generations  move  on  and  down. 

It  is  a  difficult  matter  to  trace  the  record 
of  a  criminal  and  pauper  descent ;  since,  like 
all  dark  things,  it  burrows  in  the  dark,  where 
investigation  follows  with  uncertain  feet. 

Here  and  there,  however,  by  unusual  prom- 
inence of  vigor  and  crime,  by  unusual  per- 
sistence of  interest  and  study,  the  dismal 
road  can  be  traced  —  not  to  its  end,  but 
from  a  dreary  past  to  a  hideous  present. 

At  a  recent  meeting  of  the  State  Charities 
Aid  Association  of  New  York,  Dr.  Harris 
presented  some  verified  statistics  of  the  out- 
growth of  a  single  life  of  neglect  and  misery. 

Two  hundred  years  ago,  in  a  small  village 
on  the  Upper  Hudson,  "  Margaret  "  was  left 
adrift ;  a  solitary  child,  without  family,  or 
friends,  or  home.  Ah !  if  there  had  been  a 
school  for  her,  a  shelter  for  her,  a  law  that 
had  been,  in  sort  at  least,  a  foster  father  and 
mother  to  her ;  and  some  one  to  see  that  she 
received  all  that  the  law  allowed,  perhaps 


100  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

going  a  step  out  of  the  -way  to  make  sure 
that  this  life  had  its  feet  planted  on  the  right 
road! 

But,  no ;  neither  the  law,  nor  any  man  nor 
woman  within  or  without  the  law,  cared  for 
her  body  or  her  soul. 

The  little  unregarded  animal  lived  its  ani- 
mal life ;  grew,  found  others  of  its  kind,  per- 
petuated its  animal  life ;  died ;  and,  dying, 
left  a  long  line  of  criminals  and  paupers  to 
curse  those  who  had  made  no  effort  to  turn 
the  curse  of  its  life  into  a  blessing. 

Shooting  down  through  six  generations, 
the  county  records  show  nine  hundred  descend- 
ats  of  this  one  abandoned  life  to  have  been 
and  to  be  drunkards,  lunatics,  imbeciles, 
idiots,  paupers,  and  prostitutes ;  two  hundred 
of  these  convicted  of  and  punished  for  crime. 

In  one  generation  alone,  there  were  twenty 
children,  of  whom  seventeen  grew,  like  poi- 
sonous weeds,  to  maturity.  Of  these  seven- 
teen, nine  served  in  State  prisons,  for  high 
crimes,  an  aggregate  term  of  fifty  years; 
while  the  remaining  eight  divided  their  exist- 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  101 

ence  among  jails,  penitentiaries,  and  alms- 
houses. 

"  Behold,  how  great  a  matter  a  little  fire 
kindleth!" 

This  one  spark  of  life,  that,  watched  and 
tended,  might  have  made  a  cheerful  blaze  on 
a  domestic  hearth,  warming  and  vivifying  a 
home,  —  an  excellent  thing  in  itself,  a  com- 
fort and  help  to  others,  —  left  to  run  wild, 
has  grown  and  grown  till  it  sweeps  a  tempest 
of  flame,  consuming  property,  persons,  morals, 
and  that  thing  for  which  we  care  so  much, 
money,  by  hundreds  of  thousands. 

"  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he 
also  reap." 


102  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


XIV. 

THESE  are  dismal  pictures,  cry  you,  to 
hold  up  as  transcripts  of  any  part  of  the  life 
of  the  Republic !  Can  you  not  find  some- 
thing better  and  finer  and  pleasanter  to  put 
before  our  eyes?  You  could  enchant  our 
vision,  and  yet  hold  to  the  truth. 

It  is  even  so ;  but  there  are  a  plenty  to 
do  such  grateful  service,  few  to  perform 
its  ungracious  reverse.  While  others  have 
painted  sunshine,  and  beauty,  and  prosperity, 
till  your  eyes  are  dazzled,  it  is  mine  to  stand 
within  the  gloom  and  the  shadow,  and,  taking 
their  voice,  cry  aloud,  "  You  ignore  me,  but  I 
am  here.  Ah  !  for  your  own  sake  ignore  me 
no  longer ! " 

"My  son,"  said  a  certain  great  French 
king,  in  giving  his  boy  wise  maxims  of  gov- 
ernment, "if  you  would  govern  well,  you 
must  seem  to  love  your  people." 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  103 

"  How  shall  I  seem  to  love  them,  father  ?  " 
inquired  the  boy. 

"My  son,  by  loving  them." 

If  we  would  see  our  country  great,  we 
must  love  it,  and  serve  it,  and  love  the 
service. 

It  has  endless  possibilities  of  growth ;  but 
rich  as  it  is  in  its  native  soil,  even  where  no 
weeds  spring,  it  will  be  the  better  for  culti- 
vation, and  we  be  the  better  for  the  work  of 
cultivating  it. 

"  All  in  due  time,"  you  say  ?  "  What 
need  of  haste,  or  care,  or  toil  ?  In  the  ap- 
pointed times  and  seasons,  as  the  earth 
brings  forth  bud,  and  leaf,  and  fruit,  so  will 
thought,  and  creation,  and  progress,  in  fair 
and  stately  order,  take  possession  of  the 
world.  Why  should  we  be  asked  to  help  or 
to  hurry  fate  or  Providence  ?  " 

Do  ample  harvests  spring  from  virgin  soil  ? 
How  much  does  God  do  for  man  in  Nature, 
while  he  sits  and  waits  ?  Out  on  the  Cali- 
fornia parks  is  a  vast  carpet  of  wild  oats, 
and,  over  the  foot-hills,  manzanita  and  chap- 


104  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

arral  and  scrub-oak,  —  there  from  time  out 
of  knowledge,  and  to  be  there  till  time 
beyond  thought,  if  Nature  were  left  merely 
to  her  own  devices ;  and  yet  in  this  same 
Nature  are  possibilities  of  grain  and  growth 
so  luxuriant,  so  rich,  so  abounding,  as  to 
be  the  wonder  of  the  world.  And  there  are 
places  all  over  its  surface,  that  were  thought 
to  be  desert  land,  useless  and  barren,  — 
Nature  making  no  sign,  —  that,  under  busy 
hands  and  care,  are  to-day  what  Charles 
the  Emperor  thought  Florence  to  be,  — 
"  Too  pleasant  to  be  looked  upon,  but  only 
on  holy  days." 

In  brief,  God  is  a  good  worker,  but  he 
loves  to  be  helped,  and  we  need  to  help  him. 
How  much  more,  to  help  one  another ! 

To  love  our  country,  to  serve  it,  and  to 
love  the  service ! 

Many  a  man,  apparently,  thinks  he  is 
saying  something  of  some  credit  to  himself, 
when  he  announces  that  he  does  not  vote ; 
that  no  gentleman  concerns  himself  with 
politics  in  these  days. 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  105 

Such  an  one  ought  to  know  that  the  citi- 
zen who  says,  "  I  have  lived  through  so 
many  elections,  and  have  never  cast  a  bal- 
lot," confesses  himself  guilty  of  as  real  base- 
ness, as  the  soldier  who  proclaims  that  he 
has  been  through  so  many  battles,  and  has 
never  fired  a  shot. 

Such  an  one  ought  to  understand  that  a 
man  who  receives  the  benefit  of  such  a  gov- 
ernment as  ours,  and  repays  it  by  no  thought 
nor  action  of  his  own,  is  no  more  worthy  of 
the  name  of  gentleman,  than  any  other  re- 
ceiver of  a  benefit,  who  accepts  it  while 
openly  professing  contempt  for  the  donor. 

Such  an  one  ought  to  realize  that  he  who 
has  brains,  culture,  opportunity,  and  uses 
none  of  these  for  the  help  of  the  poor,  the 
degraded,  and  the  needy,  is  as  unmanly  as 
a  giant  who  sees  a  cripple  sinking  beneath 
his  load,  or  a  child  fainting  under  his  bur- 
then, and  stretches  no  hand  to  assist  or  to 
save.  A  sense  of  individual  responsibility, 
a  recognition  of  the  brotherhood  of  human- 
ity, —  that  is  what  we  need. 


106  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

A  sense  of  individual  responsibility,  — 
not  alone  to  vote,  but  to  act ;  not  alone  to 
make  laws,  but  to  see  that  they  are  exe- 
cuted. There  is  a  homely  old  proverb  which 
says,  "  If  you  want  a  thing  attended  to,  go : 
if  not,  send." 

A  recognition  of  the  brotherhood  of  hu- 
manity,—  a  traveller  tells,  in  his  story  of 
foreign  wanderings,  of  how  he  went  into  a 
cemetery  near  Dublin,  to  stand  by  the  grave 
of  O'Connell ;  and  having  stood  and .  mused 
for  a  space,  moving  on,  came  to  a  stone  that 
bore  the  name  of  Tom  Moore.  "How  is 
this  ?  "  said  he,  turning  to  the  sexton  ;  "  a 
Protestant  laid  among  Catholics,  —  a  heretic 
resting  in  consecrated  soil  ?  How  is  this  ?  " 

"  Sure,"  answered  the  sexton,  "  O'Connell 
was  for  liberty,  and  Tom  Moore  was  for  lib- 
erty ;  and  liberty,  you  know,  does  make 
brothers  of  us  all." 

Let  humanity,  then,  make  brothers  of  us 
all.  Since  we  have  to  confess  a  common 
bond  in  sickness,  in  sorrow,  hi  death,  at  the 
grave's  mouth,  let  us  learn  it  in  help,  in 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  107 

comfort,  by  the  strong  assisting  the  weak, 
and  even  the  weak  the  weaker ;  in  a  hearty 
and  wholesome  recognition  of  the  faith  that 
"  one  is  our  Father,  even  God ;  and  all 
we  are  brethren." 


108  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 


XV. 

WHATSOEVER  lias  been  said  in  this  little 
book  to  men,  who  have  the  conceded  right  to 
vote,  is  said  to  women,  who  ought  to  accom- 
plish the  duty  of  voting. 

The  work  of  this  world  will  be  done  only 
when  every  man  and  every  woman  shall  do 
his  and  her  share  to  the  full. 

Say  some  men  and  some  women,  "  Women 
cannot  fight :  therefore  they  should  not  vote. 
Women  cannot  enforce  disputed  authority: 
therefore  they  should  not  assume  it.  Men 
will  never  consent  to  the  equal  rule  of 
women,  since  women  have  not  the  strength 
to  compel  obedience." 

That  is  to  say,  the  world  of  men  will 
never  advance  beyond  a  recognition  of  brute 
power. 

The   entire   movement    of    civilization  is 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  109 

marked  by  the  ability  of  men  to  do  without, 
force,  or  the  forms  or  threatenings  of  force  in 
government,  to  accomplish  self-government, 
to  submit  to  the  dictates  of -reason  and  con- 
science. In  just  such  degree  as  the  world 
shows  itself  ready  for  the  recognition  of 
women  in  political  power,  it  shows  itself  fit 
for  self-government.  He  who  uses  the  whip 
needs  the  whip.  He  who  needs  the  whip,  if 
he  have  the  opportunity,  uses  it. 

So  long  as  politics  meant  wars  and  rumors 
of  wars,  so  long  as  every  twisted  knot  or 
tangled  skein  was  to  be  cut  by  sword  or 
battle-axe,  there  was  no  place  for  women's 
hands  in  this  field.  They  could  hold  and 
wield  no  such  weapons.  But  that  day  is 
done.  Even  kings  no  longer  play  at  chess, 
with  nations  for  pawns.  This  war  of  ours 
had  to  defend  itself,  to  make  its  cause  good, 
to  prove  that  it  signified  more  than  national 
territory,  or  power,  or  unity ;  that  it  meant, 
in  very  truth,  liberty,  humanity,  the  rights 
of  man,  not  alone  for  those  who  fought  it, 
but  for  those  who  had  not  the  strength,  in 


110  A  PAYINQ  INVESTMENT. 

some  cases  scarcely  the  will,  to  contend  for 
themselves,  ere  it  could  go  on  its  way  to  a 
victorious  close. 

When  a  war  is  fought  on  such  grounds, 
wars,  for  us,  are  nearly  ended. 

"  Jove  means  to  settle 
Astrsea  in  her  seat  again, 
And  let  down,  from  her  golden  chain, 
An  age  of  better  metal." 

The  questions  of  government  to-day,  and 
yet  more  to-morrow,  are  questions  sanitary, 
educational,  social,  humanitarian. 

The  drainage  of  great  cities ;  the  duties 
of  boards  of  health ;  the  education  of  chil- 
dren and  youth ;  the  fostering  of  science 
and  art ;  the  suppression  of  vice  and  in- 
temperance ;  the  reforming  of  forms  of 
justice;  the  re-organization  of  systems  of 
public  charity  and  public  correction;  the 
supervision  of  homes  for  the  homeless  and 
the  disabled,  for  the  orphans  and  the  aged, 
for  the  deaf,  the  blind,  the  sick,  the  incapa- 
ble, the  insane ;  the  establishment  of  jus- 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  Ill 

tice  in  domestic  relations  ;  a  re-enactment  of 
laws  touching  marriage,  divorce,  the  guard- 
ianship of  children,  — 

These  are  matters,  one  and  all,  that  should 
interest  woman  if  they  do  not ;  that  would 
be  the  better  done  for  her  help ;  that  need 
her  care,  the  care  of  which  she  needs,  for 
mutual  growth  and  benefit. 

Women  who,  as  a  rule,  are  so  cleanly  and 
careful  in  their  own  houses,  and  such  admira- 
ble nurses  in  their  own  homes,  and  such  cap- 
ital organizers  in  their  own  small  domains, 
would  see  that  all  questions  concerning  the 
general  health  of  towns  and  cities,  the  gen- 
eral care  of  hospitals  and  asylums  of  all 
sorts,  were  better  met  and  answered  than 
they  are  by  the  men  who  now  face  and 
settle  them. 

No  set  of  women  would  keep  house  in 
such  a  filthy  way  as  men  keep  it  in  the 
streets  of  great  cities. 

No  set  of  women  would  keep  house  to 
such  waste,  and  to  so  little  comfort,  as  men 
keep  it  in  the  body  of  public  institutions 
under  their  control. 


112  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

No  set  of  women,  with  the  home-making 
instinct  strong  in  them,  would  organize  such 
cheerless  barracks,  such  schools  of  idleness, 
as  are  the  huge  agglomerations  of  public 
charities. 

No  set  of  women,  being  enlightened, 
would  set  wide  on  all  sides  doors  that  are 
the  gates  to  hell,  dig  pitfalls  into  which  the 
unwary  must  stumble,  do  it  in  the  name  of 
the  law,  and  then  thrust  out  their  well  be- 
loved to  meet  the  fate  that  has  been  pre- 
pared for  them  —  only  standing  ready  to 
punish  them  if  they  go  down. 

Now  men  say  to  women,  and  women  con- 
sent to  the  saying,  "  Thy  place  is  at  home. 
Thy  duty  is  to  thy  children.  Why  strive  in 
unwomanly  fashion  for  place,  and  name,  and 
authority,  and  rights  in  the  world  ?  " 

A  woman  can  only  do  her  duty  to  her 
home,  —  to  other  people's  homes,  —  if  her 
own  is  safe :  her  duty  to  her  children, 
her  duty  to  her  own  soul,  by  going  into  the 
world,  not  to  strive  in  unwomanly  fashion 
for  place,  and  name,  and  authority,  and 


A  PAYING   INVESTMENT.  113 

rights ;  but,  in  womanly  fashion,  to  do  the 
work  that  no  man  is  doing,  the  work  that 
men  are  doing  ill,  the  work  that  men  are 
actually  forbidding  to  be  done. 

It  is  an  easy  thing  to  teach,  an  easy  thing 
to  learn,  selfishness,  and  call  it  womanliness. 

There  are  a  plenty  to  say  and  to  hear  the 
saying,  "  The  world  is  God's,  not  thine : 
let  him  work  out  a  change  if  change  must 
be."  Take  thine  ease  under  thy  own  vine 
and  fig-tree.  Let  the  world  rush  on  its  way  to 
sorrow,  to  sin,  to  shame.  "What  should  such  a 
fragile  form  as  thine  do  to  stop  or  to  stay  it  ? 

Let  truth  fall  in  the  streets,  let  virtue 
wander  homeless  till  its  feet  take  hold  of  the 
steps  that  lead  down  to  destruction.  What 
should  such  a  delicate  hand  as  thine  do  to 
arrest  or  to  save  ?  soil  it  by  no  such  contact. 

Let  gilded  hells  be  opened  on  all  sides  to 
lure  thy  sons  and  thy  neighbor's  sons  to 
gamble  away  their  earnings,  the  support  of  a 
home ;  to  draw  them  to  arms  that  will  em- 
brace only  to  poison,  sending  them  back  to 
innocent  and  unconscious  arms,  that  will  be 

8 


114  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

poisoned  in  turn ;  to  put  to  the  mouths  of 
the  weak  in  will,  the  strong  in  appetite,  that 
that  will  destroy  body  and  brain,  reason  and 
conscience,  home  and  happiness,  heart  and 
soul,  together.  What  shouldst  thou  know 
of  such  matters?  To  know  is  to  be  contami- 
nated :  keep  thy  ignorance,  or  thy  ostensible 
ignorance,  and  thy  womanly  charm  together. 

Let  government  go  to  wrack,  let  commerce 
and  society  conspire  to  accomplish  evil,  let 
lives  be  blasted,  and  hearts  be  broken,  and 
souls  be  damned.  What  are  these  to  thee  ? 
Thy  sole  duty  is  as  a  violet  to  smell  sweet, 
as  a  flute  to  sound  fine  harmonies. 

And  yet,  sir,  and  yet,  madam,  God  created 
this  woman,  not  a  flower,  not  a  flute,  but  a 
living  soul ;  as  such  to  receive  help,  and  to 
yield  help  to  all  other  living  souls ;  to  it 
intrusted  seed  to  sow,  talents  to-  multiply, 
work  to  be  done.  By  and  by  the  Lord  of 
the  harvest  will  say  to  it,  — 

"  I  gave  thee  of  my  seed  to  sow  : 

Bringest  thou  me  an  hundred  fold  ? 
Can  she  look  up  with  face  aglow, 
And  answer,  '  Father,  here  is  gold  '  ?  " 


A   PAYING   INVESTMENT.  115 

Nay.  Rather,  she  will  respond,  —  This  talent 
I  multiplied  not.  I  was  afraid,  —  afraid  that 
multiplication  would  bring  weights  to  be 
carried,  and  provoke  envies  and  jealousies, 
fears  within  and  cares  without.  This  garden 
and  this  field  I  ploughed  and  planted  and 
weeded  not.  The  way  was  rough,  and  hurt 
my  feet ;  the  sun  was  hot,  and  spoiled  my 
beauty.  To  be  pleasing  in  men's  eyes,  to 
men's  tastes,  or  men's  prejudices,  to  take  my 
ease,  was  more  to  me  than  to  do  the  work  of 
God. 

O  my  sisters !  the  world  is  groaning  and 
travailing  in  pain  until  this  day,  crying  out 
of  the  darkness  wherein  it  gropes,  out  of 
the  anguish  in  which  it  writhes,  for  your 
hands  and  help  and  care.  Where,  then,  are 
your  woman's  hearts  and  your  woman's  con- 
sciences, that  you  are  silent  and  still  ? 

Go  you  to  the  asylums  and  the  hospitals, 
and  make  of  them  homes. 

Go  to  the  jails,  the  prisons,  the  peniten- 
tiaries, and  make  them  reformatories  and 
regenerators. 


116  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

Go  to  the  ignorant,  the  rude,  the  stupid, 
and  see  that  the  light  of  intelligence  is  let 
into  their  night  of  mental  bondage. 

Go  to  the  doors  through  which  men  go  in 
men,  and  come  out  wild  beasts;  the  doors 
that  return,  for  the  money  there  left,  poverty, 
fightings,  dismantled  homes,  brawls,  murders ; 
that  absorb  men  and  money,  and  in  exchange 
crowd  almshouses  and  jails,  and  ripen  fruit 
for  that  ghastly  tree  of  civilization,  —  the 
gallows.  Standing  there,  in  behalf  of  men, 
of  women,  of  children,  of  society,  alike  out- 
raged, defied,  dishonored,  destroyed,  say,  "  In 
the  name  of  the  law,  and  with  the  power  of 
the  law,  I  stop  this  wholesale  poison  and 
butchery." 

O  men,  my  brothers!  of  what  are  you 
afraid  ?  In  just  such  measure  as  a  man  does 
his  duty  to  the  world,  does  he  grow  in  real 
manliness.  In  just  such  measure  as  a  woman 
does  her  duty  to  the  world,  does  she  grow  in 
real  womanliness. 

Selfishness  is  not  loveliness;  weakness  is 
not  tenderness.  As  woman's  life  broadens 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  117 

and  deepens,  as  her  thought  and  her  cares 
and  her  responsibilities  widen,  so  does  her 
capacity  for  love,  her  strength  of  love, 
broaden  and  deepen,  grow  in  richness  and 
beauty,  grace  and  power. 

As  women  love  humanity  more,  they  will 
give  better  love  to  the  men  by  their  sides. 
Out  of  such  work  and  such  life,  men,  then, 
will  be  the  gainers  in  that  for  which  they 
reveal  the  most  desire,  and  express  the  most 
care. 

I  see  grow  out  of  such  life  and  such  work 
a  woman  who  possesses  both  head  and  heart ; 
a  soul  to  feel,  a  brain  to  think ;  broad,  ear- 
nest, just,  as  well  as  sweet,  tender,  and  pure ; 
able  to  give,  as  well  as  to  receive ;  to  help, 
as  well  as  to  welcome  help ;  a  woman  to  rest 
a  tired  man,  to  inspire  a  discouraged  man,  to 
stimulate  a  flagging  man,  as  well  as  to  be 
rested,  inspired,  stimulated,  in  blessed  time 
and  turn ;  a  woman  to  see  in  society,  in 
the  church,  in  the  State,  a  family  that  needs 
her  loving  wisdom,  her  thoughtful  care,  as 
does  that  of  her  own  home;  a  woman^  as 


118  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

her  Maker  intended  her  to  be.  The  nations 
of  the  earth  shall  rise  up  and  call  such  an 
one  blessed ;  and  God  himself  shall  say  to 
her  work,  "  Well  done !  " 

I  ask  such  work  for  woman,  not  alone  for 
herself,  but  quite  as  earnestly  for  the  sake 
of  the  man  who  works  and  walks  by  her 
side;  since  broader  thinking,  nobler  living, 
a  more  exalted  type  of  womanhood,  among 
women,  would  compel  —  and  there  is  need 
of  it  —  broader  thinking,  nobler  living,  a 
more  exalted  type  of  manhood,  among  men. 

"What  does  it  matter  to  the  world,"  as 
Paul  Flemming  asks,  "whether  you  or  I 
or  another  did  such  a  deed,  or  wrote  such  a 
book,  so  be  it  deed  and  book  were  well 
done?" 

To  the  world,  nothing,  so  that  the  work 
be  done ;  if,  indeed,  it  can  be  done  by 
another.  Thy  work  is  thine  alone. 

Small  loss  to  the  world,  perhaps,  if  one 
man  or  one  woman  left  his  or  her  task  un- 
wrought ;  but  how  if  the  one  be  multiplied 
to  millions?  If  each  one  so  said,  and  was 


A  PAYING  INVESTMENT.  119 

idle,  the  "matter"  would  be  to  the  world 
that  all  of  its  labor  would  be  unaccom- 
plished. 

And,  aside  from  the  gaps  and  flaws  so 
made  in  the  work  and  destiny  of  the  world, 
what  does  it  matter  to  you  whether  your 
eyes  having  seen  the  work  to  be  done,  your 
ears  having  heard  the  cry  of  distress,  and 
the  call  to  duty,  your  feet  having  come  to 
the  burthen  where  it  lies  in  the  way,  you 
close  your  eyes,  stop  your  ears,  go  wide  of 
the  path  and  the  burthen,  and  leave  it  to 
the  chance  and  the  risk  of  another  seeing, 
hearing,  answering,  carrying  faithfully  to  the 
end? 

To  the  world,  it  may  or  may  not  be  of 
some  moment:  to  your  soul,  or  mine,  it  is, 
I  think,  the  difference  between  an  essential 
heaven  or  hell. 

So  not  alone  for  the  world's  sake,  not 
alone  for  the  sake  of  men  and  women  in 
connection  with  time  and  the  things  of  time, 
but  for  the  sake  of  character-growth, — the 
growth  of  the  soul,  —  do  I  ask  that  each 


120  A  PAYING  INVESTMENT. 

man  and  each  woman  shall  do  his  and  her 
work,  where  it  may  be  found,  and  do  it  till 
work  for  them  is  done. 

Since  God  put  no  soul  into  the  world,  in 
frail  or  stalwart  body,  to  smell  a  rose,  to 
wander  through  a  flower-garden,  to  dream 
away  the  long,  long  hours  of  a  sunny  sum- 
mer-time of  idleness,  to  seek  selfishly  its 
own  pleasures,  feed  selfishly  its  own  wants, 
gratify  selfishly  its  own  desires;  but,  while 
it  is  called  to-day,  to  do  whatsoever  its 
hand  findeth  to*do  for  friend  or  foe,  or  the 
stranger  within  or  without  the  gates,  and  to 
do  it  with  its  might ;  to  clamber  mountain 
peaks  —  peaks  of  earnest  endeavor,  of  heroic 
duty  —  through  life,  that,  at  death,  it  may  be 
near  to  heaven ;  to  toil  in  a  harvest-field,  to 
labor  in  a  vineyard,  the  bread  and  the  wine 
of  which  shall  be  tasted  here,  but  shall  be 
eaten  and  drunken  to  the  full  in  the  eternities 
of  God. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
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